This year’s wheat crop in Zimbabwe will be sponsored by the private sector, which is becoming more crucial in agriculture as the government liberalizes the business in order to boost food security.
Commodity dealers, off-takers, and millers have been subsidized crop production under the Food Crop Contractors Association (FCCA) since 2020, and chairman Graeme Murdoch said that private merchants would increase their involvement.
He stated in an interview that the private sector’s engagement in primary agriculture is expanding because “the reality is that as the environment becomes more liberalized, the government makes every effort to essentially crowd in the private sector,” he added.
Murdoch predicted that the private sector, particularly the country’s biggest bank CBZ Holdings, and the state-owned AFC Commercial Bank, would finance around 76% of the expected 2023 wheat acreage.
Farmers that prefer to self-finance will make up the difference, as will the government’s myriad input support programs.
Zimbabwe has continually struggled to feed itself since former President Robert Mugabe called for the confiscation of white-owned farms in 2000 in order to move landless Blacks.
Food production plummeted as skilled farmers withdrew and help for the newly moved dried up. Since most farms were nationalized, the state has struggled to fund food production while being the single greatest investment.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa has made it easier for the private sector, particularly banks, to fund the growing of essential commodities like as maize, wheat, and soy after gaining power in a 2017 coup.
In addition, the government ended the Grain Marketing Board’s (GMB) monopoly as the only buyer of maize and wheat.
The government anticipates a record wheat harvest of 408,000 tonnes this year, up from 375,131 tonnes in 2022.
According to official figures, private enterprises operating under the FCCA spent $62.7 million on the production of 209,138 tonnes of maize, or around 9% of the total maize output of 2.3 million tonnes this year. Zimbabwe’s maize output will increase by 58% over the previous year in 2023.
