The Sunday News
THE Grain Marketing Board will this year enhance its mandate to ensure strategic grain reserves by purchasing all small grains grown in the country at the same price as that of maize, an official said.
GMB general manager Mr Albert Mandizha said the parastatal was ready for deliveries of grain from the yield realised during the 2013/14 season.
GMB’s marketing season started in the first week of this month with the first deliveries of 2.4 tonnes of maize being delivered by Mr Ozias Sibanda from Lusulu in Binga district of Matabeleland North on 8 April.
“This time around we will be buying, sieving and taking in all the farm produce in terms of grains and this includes small. We are really working on a lot of initiatives to ensure that the small grains out there be delivered to GMB as we want to build on the strategic grain reserves, a seed reserve for the small grains,” he said.
The Minister of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development, Dr Joseph Made announced that new 2014-2015 maize producer price is now pegged $390 up from $385 a tonne.
GMB said it would buy maize at the same price.
Mr Mandizha said as part of GMB’s efforts to improve and enhance its business the availability of small grains it was working on having a seed house as well as milling these particular crops.
There has been an adverse shortage of small grains in the country over the years as most seed houses are reluctant to breed seed varieties while most farmers are shunning the crop for fear of losing most of their yield to quelea birds.
Mr Mandizha said apart from creating a seed reserve for small grains the company had set sights on adding value to the produce and including it in its production line.
“It’s not normally easy to find small grains but we want to promote them through buying the small grains and keeping some for the next season because there is a lot of interest and demand for it.
“We are also working on making sure that we start milling small grains through coming up with rapoko and sorghum meal because we realise there is a shift with some of our citizens liking that kind of food,” he said.
Mr Mandizha said the parastatal was now accepting produce at all its depots.
“The harvesting has started and the GMB is now ready to accept grain from this coming season. We are ready to take the product but there are some few points which I want to put across for the benefit of our farmers and ourselves. It’s important that the maize which is coming through doesn’t have moisture content beyond 12.5 percent,” Mr Mandizha said.
He urged farmers to bring about two kilogrammes of their produce for moisture tests at depots before bringing their deliveries destined for the silos.
In an effort to increase volumes of grains and oilseeds GMB is in the process of identifying farmers that would benefit from its contract farming programme.
“We continue vetting the farmers for contract farming in the coming season. We are building our database and so far more than 500 farmers have been vetted for the forthcoming season and around August to September we are going to announce our position with regards to where we are going,” Mr Mandizha said.
Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development, Deputy Minister responsible for crop production and irrigation development, Davis Marapira said the move by the GMB to come up with a small grains reserve was welcome taking into consideration that the seeds were in shortage in the country.
“As a Government we are happy with the initiative taken by the GMB as we are also promoting the cropping of small grains in most areas which suit their production in the country. We will also ensure that the farmers get reasonable prices for their produce upon delivering it to the GMB,” Dep Minister Marapira said.
