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Elita Chikwati Senior Agriculture Reporter
The new soya bean support price of $610 per tonne, which was slated to become effective in the 2017 /2018 marketing season, has been pushed forward and will become effective immediately, a Government official has said. Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister Dr Joseph Made yesterday said the $610 per tonne price was now applying to all the soya bean delivered to the Grain Marketing Board (GMB).

“This means farmers who had delivered their crop will now get $610 per tonne, while those who had been paid $500 per tonne by the parastatal for their soya bean will get an additional $110 per tonne,” he said.

Government introduced a stimulus price to encourage farmers to produce soya bean, a critical raw material in the production of edible oil and feedstock.

About 1,8 million farmers are expected to benefit from the Presidential Inputs Scheme as they have been roped in to get support under the scheme.

Each household will receive a 10 kilogramme bag of soya seed and rhizobium (a fertiliser for the crop).

“The Minister of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development has been in consultation with the central bank governor Dr John Mangudya and Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Cde Patrick Chinamasa, to appeal for consideration of giving a stimulus soya bean price to farmers who will grow soya bean and deliver to the GMB,” said Dr Made.

“It is my considered view that soya bean, because of its importance in terms of nitrogen fixing, will be a massive beneficial crop to the country in terms of the biggest challenges of the cost of top-dressing fertiliser and from a crop husbandry point of view.

“Soya bean can also be effectively used for crop rotation with maize or wheat. Other than the industrial benefit of soya bean such as cooking oil, soya milk, soya chunks and soya cake for livestock, this is one of the comprehensive crop that a country like Zimbabwe can benefit from at the farmer level.

“I like to see women projects across the country being encouraged to have crop rotations that include soya bean.”