Zimbabwe’s state grain utility said on Monday it was enlisting the help of the country’s defence forces to collect grain from farmers in a bid to boost lagging deliveries.
Maize is a controlled commodity in Zimbabwe and is sold only to the Grain Marketing Board (GMB), which distributes it to private firms for milling.
”The GMB wishes to inform the farmers that there will be a massive grain collection exercise, which will be carried out in conjuction with members of the defence forces,” the board said in a statement.
”This is being done in order for GMB to fulfill its strategic commitment of ensuring food security,” it added.
President Robert Mugabe’s government has forecast a 1,8-million tonne maize harvest this year, which is expected to meet the country’s food needs for the first time since 2001. Other forecasts see a much smaller crop.
The government would continue to import maize, mainly from South Africa, to build up its strategic grain reserves while the GMB says farmers would this year deliver 900 000 tonnes to it.
But state media reported in mid August that farmers had only delivered 90 000 tonnes of maize to GMB depots countrywide and that some grain was already rotting after the entity failed to collect the commodity from communal farmers.
Most shops in the capital Harare have gone without the staple maize-meal for more than a week while the southern parts of the country have experienced shortages since last month.
The GMB has said the shortages in the second city of Bulawayo and the surrounding areas were a result of transport problems moving grain imported from South Africa.
The GMB purchases grain from farmers at Z$31-million ($124) a tonne and sells it to millers at a 10th of the price but has barred some millers for reselling the commodity back to the GMB through third parties.
Aid agencies have warned of another food deficit in the country this year, saying a lack of inputs such as seed and fertiliser has undermined production in the recently ended summer cropping season.
Zimbabwe has experienced food shortages since 2001 after being hit by drought and disruptions to agriculture blamed partly on the government’s seizure of white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to landless blacks. – Reuters