Grain Marketing Board (GMB) Acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Clemence Guta has said the parastatal has cleared all outstanding payments to wheat farmers for deliveries of the crop from last season after receiving over US$5 million from the Treasury this week.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, 04 June 2024, Guta said the US$5.3 million payment brings total earnings by wheat farmers for last year’s crop to US$44 million. Said Guta:
The Grain Marketing Board wishes to advise our valued customers and stakeholders that all outstanding payments for wheat farmers have been fully made.
The Grain Marketing Board this week received USD 5.3 million to clear all outstanding wheat payments from the last season, bringing total payments to USD 44 million.
GMB appreciates the support it received from the Treasury in mobilizing financial resources and making farmer payments a top priority.
GMB recognizes and values the resilience and commitment of our farmers who are spearheading the agricultural transformation agenda.
GMB assures of its commitment to continue playing a key role in national food security, especially in ensuring that farmers are paid on time.
While this is a positive development, some wheat farmers have failed to prepare and participate in the ongoing winter wheat cropping season due to the delayed payments.
This will likely impact negatively on the Government’s target of putting 120 000 hectares under winter wheat this season from which 600 000 tonnes are expected.
In a recent interview with Business Weekly, the Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union president, Shadreck Makombe, said:
Some farmers who should have planted wheat this season have not been able to do so because they have not been paid for deliveries made to the Grain Marketing Board last year.
Most of the farmers who are meant to be doing the winter wheat are not participating and this is likely to affect the area that the Government is targeting under the crop and the projected yield will be negatively affected.
Wheat production is a process that we think with the planting window the targeted 120 000ha was achievable or may even be surpassed, had all the traditional wheat growers participated.
