The Sunday News
Shepias Dube Business Reporter
THERE is a need to scale up the production and productivity of soya beans to narrow the deficit gap in the supply, an official has said. In an interview on Wednesday, Zimbabwe National Soya Commodity Association vice-president, who is also the soya beans co-ordinator for Midlands Province, Ms Jane Mutatu, said the country has a deficit of close to 400 000 tonnes of soya beans per year.
“The national demand for soya beans in the country is about 500 000 tonnes but as per last year figures our local farmers are able to produce about 100 000 tonnes. Surely this is a worrying deficit which need a pragmatic plan of action to reduce,” said Ms Mutatu.
She said as part of the revitalisation of soya beans in the country farmers in Midlands have set aside over 3 100 hectares of land towards the production of soya beans this year.
Under this exercise each of the eight districts in the province has been allocated a certain hectarage of soya beans.
Ms Mutatu said Kwekwe, which is the hub of commercial large-scale farmers, has been allocated 2 000ha while Gweru and Gokwe South will have 500 ha each.
Mvuma and Shurugwi farmers will plant 400ha and 100ha of soya beans respectively while Zvishavane, Chirumanzu and Gokwe South are targeting 50ha each.
“In the last three districts we are mainly dealing with communal farmers who are getting into the production of soya beans for the first time and as an association we will ensure that these are fully supported with inputs and agronomic information pertaining to the production of soya,” she said.
She encouraged communal farmers to form ward based groups so that the coordination process would be easier.
“We don’t want to deal with individual farmers as this will complicate things for our farmers especially when it comes to the distribution of inputs and the marketing of the crop,” said Ms Mutatu.
The programme is being supported by SNV Netherlands which will contribute towards inputs for small-scale communal farmers as well as provide training for Agritex officers who will be supervising the exercise.
SNV will also help the farmers secure markets from the local processors.
Meanwhile, Ms Mutatu said her organisation is engaging a local cooking oil processing company, United Refineries, which will see farmers entering into contract farming with the Bulawayo-based company.
“This arrangement will see farmers being guaranteed by United Refineries to assess loans from Agribank on the basis that farmers will strictly sell their crop to the company. The company will then ensure that farmers repay the loan to the bank,” she said.
