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to between US$350 and US$400 per tonne.
The increase, said the farmers, will enable them to break even and go back to the land next season.

They said production costs have been increasing every year by high margins while the producer price remained stagnant.
The grain-marketing season begins on April 1 and Government is yet to release the maize producer price.
Farmers said this was preventing them from planning accordingly and some buyers may take advantage of

the absence of a floor price to rip off farmers by buying the grain at give away prices.
Zimbabwe Farmers Union director, Mr Paul Zakariya said prices of maize were going up on the regional market due to shortages.

He said Zambia used to have huge stocks of maize but due to poor storage they no longer had stocks while South Africa over supplied to Kenya and now had grain shortages.
Zambia is selling maize at over US$300 per tonne.
“Besides the shortage on the market our farmers should get higher prices because of the high production costs,” he said.

Mr Zakariya said it costs US$460 to produce a hectare of maize and many farmers usually get yields of 800 kg per hectare making the US$285 per tonne unviable.
“The only challenge we have is that our yields are low and farmers should also concentrate on increasing yields per unit area if they are going to get meaningful profits from maize production,” he said.

Centenary farmer, Mr Edward Raradza said he was looking at US$360 upwards for a tonne of maize.
“Up to now we are still waiting for the producer price and farmers will not be able to make important decisions.

“Last season some farmers irrigated their crop to supplement the erratic rains and realised huge losses when they sold their crop. This season a number of farmers were reluctant to irrigate their crops so that they could reduce production costs.

“It is important that the producer price is announced early so that the farmer will know where to sell his produce,” he said.
Mr Raradza said some farmers were afraid of delivering their crop to the GMB because they were not sure of the price and also the payments.
Mr Zakariya urged Government to start preparing for the grain-marketing season to ensure farmers get their payments soon after delivering their crop to GMB.

This, he said, will encourage farmers to deliver their crop to the parastatal for the strategic grain reserve.
Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union president, Mr Donald Khumalo said Government should be willing to fund local farmers.

“Government should be willing to support farmers by buying produce at viable prices. Even if it is cheaper to import, Government should prioritise local farmers to ensure they continue to produce food,” he said.

Government announces the floor price, which will be used by the GMB to buy grain from farmers.
Last season GMB was buying grain at US$285 per tonne although it took time to pay the farmers.
GMB is able to pay farmers after getting money from the Ministry of Finance.

A number of farmers feel let down when it comes to maize marketing and are now diversifying to other crops that are fetching better prices on the market.