Zimbabwe’s 2018 wheat production will this year go down to 123 000 metric tonnes from nearly 160 000 metric tonnes produced last year. This was revealed during the Zimbabwe Wheat Board (ZWB) wheat conference that took place in Harare today.
The conference was attended by the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Lands, Water, Climate and Rural Settlement Vanelis Harritatos and other stakeholders in wheat production.
Wheat, which might be a challenge from March 2019, goes down as land allocated to the grain’s 2018 production was reduced to 34 thousand hectares.
“Last year we had about 43 863 hectares in total (land allocated to wheat production) of which command program had 13 216 hectares and the private sector had 11 830 hectares so we are sliding down compared to last year,” Agritex Principal Director, Joseph Gondo said.
“Some of the underlying issues had to relate to the late start to this season, a lot of our farmers want to do a maize to wheat rotation and we have problems in getting the maize off the land on time to prepare for winter wheat .”
Stakeholders in the conference revealed that Zimbabwe wheat farming is having challenges from the growing to the harvesting of the grain.
Mr. Chitambo, who was representing a command agriculture financier Simbisa Holdings, said the funders were not secured with enough foreign currency to acquire the imports that were required for wheat.
Grain Marketing Board (GMB) manager Rockie Mutenha said farmers are delaying in delivering wheat due to fuel and harvesters shortage.
Justice Chamuka representing the Zimbabwe Fertilizer Manufacturing Association said the manufacturers are having challenges to do with foreign currency.
Commenting on the low wheat production in Zimbabwe, Blue Ribbon Foods general manager said Zimbabwe will start having challenges from the wheat shortage in March next year.
Agriculture’s deputy minister, Harritatos said the government has short term and long term goals for Zimbabwe which has the capacity to irrigate 2 million hectares of land.
“What we want from our farmers is very attainable, we have 10 thousand dams in Zimbabwe,” Harritatos said.