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Elita Chikwati Senior Reporter
The Grain Marketing Board (GMB) has urged farmers to deliver their grain to the nearest depots and collecting points and not to sell it to middlemen, as the producer price is only meant to benefit the actual farmers.

GMB said it was illegal for middlemen to buy grain from farmers and deliver it to the GMB depots, as only the parastatal and contractors were allowed to do so.

The call came in the wake of middlemen who are going to farming areas and buying grain from farmers at low prices and later reselling it to the GMB where prices are lucrative.

GMB is offering $390 per tonne, while most middlemen are buying the maize from farmers at $180 per tonne and below.

In an interview on Friday last week, GMB general manager Mr Rockie Mutenha said there was no need for farmers to sell their grain to middlemen, as the GMB was paying farmers timeously.

“This time we are paying within three to four days, so it is not necessary for the farmer to sell to middlemen,” he said. “They must just deliver to GMB and we will pay the $390 per tonne. If they sell to middlemen they are short-changed and sometimes get as little as $180. The middlemen will pocket $210 in profits when they resell the grain to us , yet the farmer who has laboured to produce the crop – buying inputs, planting, weeding, pest control and harvesting, among other operations – gets very little.

“The effort that the farmer puts in is too much for them to lose $210. We are now opening additional collection points so that the farmers do not have to travel more than a five kilometres to the GMB depot. There is no special reason why the farmer should go to the middlemen,” Mr Mutenha said.

“At the beginning of the grain marketing season, the Agricultural Marketing Authority indicated that no one else was allowed to buy maize except those who contracted farmers, so those that are doing so are doing it illegally. AMA will fine them and the maize will be confiscated because they are not supposed to be doing that. For you to be a middlemen you must register with AMA and get a trading licence.”

Mr Mutenha said GMB had a database of farmers and sometimes investigated suspicious deliveries.

Last year, Government barred millers from buying maize directly from farmers.

The move was meant to protect farmers from private buyers who fleeced them by offering unviable prices and later selling the grain to the GMB at a profit.

Maize production has been on the increase because of Government support through input programmes such as Command Agriculture and the Presidential Inputs Support Scheme.

Last season, farmers delivered 1,5 million tonnes of maize to the GMB depots and the payment system has improved from the past years when farmers waited for months before they received their money.