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Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement Minister Chief Air Marshal Perrance Shiri (Rtd) stresses a point at a Press briefing in Harare yesterday. — (Picture by Justin Mutenda)

Innocent Ruwende Senior Reporter
Government has moved to ease fertiliser shortage after availing an undisclosed amount of foreign currency for the importation of raw materials to manufacture adequate stocks.

Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement Minister Chief Air Marshal Perrance Shiri (Retired) told journalists yesterday that his ministry would continue consulting the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, as well as Treasury, so that necessary funding was put in place to enable farmers to go about their business without any further delay.

“I am aware of the concerns raised by many farmers, not only with regards to top dressing fertilisers, but many other inputs relating to Command Agriculture. On behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture, I would like to say we are aware of the challenges being faced by the farmers,” he said.

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“These challenges have been occasioned by the delay in availing nostro funding, as the farmers may appreciate. The chemicals and some of the raw materials for fertilisers are imported and they can only be imported once foreign currency or nostro support has been made available and that is where we have had a bottleneck in the past.

“I am glad to say some significant amount of nostro support has been availed and we will start seeing quite some meaningful release of fertilisers and chemicals to the farmers.”

Chief Air Marshal Shiri (Rtd) apologised to the affected farmers for the inconvenience caused, saying Government was determined to honour its obligation. Zimbabwe’s fertiliser industry requires over $120 million in foreign currency for the importation of raw materials used in the manufacture of compound and top dressing fertilisers for the current summer cropping season.

Estimated fertiliser demand for 2017/18 season is 160 000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate and 240 000 tonnes compound fertilisers, which comes to a total of 400 000 tonnes. The local fertiliser industry had been advocating for zero imports on finished compound fertilisers, but raw materials used in production only. However, supplementary ammonium nitrates and urea imports are required to cover the shortfall in the country.

Early this year, Government suspended duty on imported fertiliser and ammonia gas to ensure adequate supplies of the commodities. The announcement was made by the then Finance and Economic Planning Minister Patrick Chinamasa in an Extraordinary Government Gazette.

In terms of the notice, Statutory Instrument 55 of 2017, Minister Chinamasa said suspension of duty on fertiliser would apply to 5 300 tonnes of urea and 4 700 tonnes of ammonium nitrate until December 31, 2017.