Agriculture Reporter
The Grain Marketing Board has received nearly 2 500 tonnes of maize since the marketing season started in April. This is a decrease from the 4 512 tonnes of maize that were delivered to the parastatal’s depots during the same period last year.
The GMB marketing season starts on April 1 of every year and the peak delivery period is between July and October.
This season farmers were encouraged to indicate their deliveries to the GMB depots for planning purposes, especially when determining the amount of money required to pay the farmers.
The parastatal’s corporate communications manager, Mrs Muriel Zemura confirmed that farmers have started delivering maize produced during the 2011/12 summer cropping season.
“As of 31 May 2012, GMB has received 2 672 metric tonnes of maize,” she said.
“We are still urging farmers to bring their grain projections to GMB. Only a few farmers have responded to our request.
“It will be very difficult to project how much grain will be delivered by the farmers to the GMB depots as the response on projections from the farmers is very poor.”