Zimbabwe has adequate maize for this year – Musarara

By Vimbai Kamoyo

The Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe (GMAZ) says there will be no shortage of maize in the country, as the association will import enough grain to avert hunger.

Giving oral evidence to the Parliamentary portfolio committee on Agriculture, GMAZ Chairperson Tafadzwa Musarara said his organisation would be importing one million tonnes of grain in the country between now and March 2025 to obviate the impending hunger.

“To date we have secured 600 000 tons which is in terms of the contract of the 1,1 million tons which will be our aim to cover between livestock and human consumption.

“We anticipate that there will be demand especially in the rural market. The country will be stocked with different brands of mealie-meal until next year,” he said.

The chairperson said presently the country has enough stocks.

“Currently we have excess stock of maize. We are also finalizing on the local grain procurement since government has given us authority to buy grain directly from farmers,” said Musarara.

Zimbabwe requires about 1.8 million tons of maize annually for human consumption and is expected to harvest less than a million tons which will be a huge deficit which makes imports more welcome.

Late last year, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) said governments, donors and humanitarian bodies must prepare for high food assistance needs in Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique and Madagascar throughout 2024 to early 2025 as El Nino will disrupt agriculture.

El Nino, a natural climate phenomenon in which surface waters of the central and eastern Pacific become unusually warm, causing changes in global weather patterns, is expected to hit crop yields during the 2023/24 farming season.