This was announced by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development in its Treasury Quarterly Bulletin: January-March 2017, which was recently released during a workshop held in Harare to review the 2016/2017 agriculture season.

According to the Treasury Quarterly Bulletin, the target yield was 5t/ha.

Wheat output had been declining in recent years, as a result of frequent droughts and President Robert Mugabe’s land resettlement exercise, which had displaced many productive farmers.

To stem this decline in production, Mugabe’s government this year initiated the Special Winter Wheat Production programme to boost wheat cultivation.

“Wheat output is set to surpass 280 000t this season, which will a go a long way in reducing imports, thus saving the country’s foreign currency,” said the bulletin.

“This level of wheat production will be a huge leap from the current average planted area of 14 000ha for the past three years, [which is] producing wheat [yields] of around 60 000t [per annum].”

Zimbabwe required 400 000t of wheat every year to meet demand, but with local production far below this requirement, 85% of the outstanding amount had to be imported.

Meanwhile, the area planted to tobacco had improved 7% to 110 000ha during the 2016/2017 summer season, compared with the 2015/2016 plantings.

Output was expected to be around 215 million kilograms, surpassing the 2016 output of 203 million kilograms.

Cotton was also expected to recover this season, after government invested US$36 million (R504 million) to assist 400 000 farmers in growing the crop.

A harvest of 100 000t was anticipated. The local cotton beneficiation industry and government recently unveiled the Cotton to Clothing Strategy that sought to stimulate crop cultivation and the processing of cotton into textiles and garments.

It hoped to improve seed-cotton production from 145 000t to 450 000t by 2019, and boost yield 70% to 1 200kg/ha.

Maize farmers in Kenya have expressed concern over the threats posed by FAW, and Wilson Ronno, head of the crop production unit at the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) office for Kenya, was reported as estimating that more than 400 000ha have been affected in East Africa.

According to a report by Voice of America, the FAW first landed in Kenya around March. It quotes Joe DeVries, vice-president for programme development at the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, as saying that the fall armyworm spread rapidly to the region after first being reported in Nigeria earlier in the year.

“We’re talking about a pest that literally just arrived this year in this region and is already causing major concern among farmers, partly because they’ve never seen it before and don’t know how to control it, and partly because of the damage that’s already occurred on their farms,” said DeVries.

In a brochure prepared by the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization, Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture said the FAW infestation was first detected on off-season irrigated maize in Trans Nzoia County in the second week of March. A subsequent field survey confirmed the pest in the Bungoma, Kakamega, Uasin Gishu, Nandi, Kericho, Baringo, Nakuru, and Busia counties.

A subsequent field survey confirmed the pest in the Bungoma, Kakamega, Uasin Gishu, Nandi, Kericho, Baringo, Nakuru, and Busia counties.

The report said the pest is spreading rapidly and could cause 100% loss in crops including maize, rice, pasture, sorghum, millet, cotton and certain vegetable crops. It added: “This will result in national food insecurity and loss of income unless urgent measures are implemented.”

It added: “This will result in national food insecurity and loss of income unless urgent measures are implemented.”

An FAO report compiled before 25 April said the pest had also spread to Bomet and Narok in South Rift, and Baringo in Central Rift. There have been unconfirmed reports of FAW in eastern and coastal areas.

Government steps in over maize prices

An FAO food price monitoring analysis report on Kenya said the government there had recently introduced temporary subsidies in an effort to reduce steadily increasing maize prices.

“Prices were at record or near-record highs in April, underpinned by reduced supplies from the 2016 short-rains second season harvest and concerns over the upcoming 2017 long-rains harvest due to early season dryness and armyworm infestations,” it stated.

In October last year the Zimbabwean government introduced a similar programme for maize farmers, which has been credited for the increase in maize output, to around 2,2 million tons, this year.

The programme spent US$253 million (R3,8 billion) to support farmers to grow the staple crop on 153 000ha.

Encouraged by the programme’s success, the government has raised US$140 million (R2,1 billion) to finance winter wheat production, aiming to put about 70 000ha under cultivation.

Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa said ministers approved the command livestock model on Monday, 8 May.

Mnangagwa announced the Cabinet decision when he delivered a public lecture at Midlands State University, in Gweru in central Zimbabwe, on 10 May, saying: “Cabinet on Monday authorised that we proceed with [the] command livestock programme, targeting beef, dairy and poultry and the production of associated equipment.

“This will trigger economic activity as agro-processing companies, transporters, marketers and retail and related services will be distributing stock feeds to farmers, creating additional employment.”

He added that the improved cereal harvest, estimated at 2,7 million tons, including small grains, would help improve stock feed supplies for the livestock farmers who would be selected to participate in the command livestock scheme.

Adopting this state-led approach to animal husbandry follows the government recently approving an US$18 million (R270 million) investment to revive the Cold Storage Company, a government-owned meat-processing concern.

Joseph Made, minister of agriculture, recently reported that 600 000 livestock farmers in four south western provinces were already stacking hay and creating paddocks under the command livestock initiative.

Speaking to Farmer’s Weekly, Made said: “Like I said a few weeks ago, Namibia has offered to support us, the same for Botswana. They have well-developed livestock sectors and they will help us. With regard to Namibia they have very special breeds of beef cattle and goats that we feel can help improve our stock.” Made added that the initiative would prioritise beef and dairy production, before incorporating smaller stock.

Livestock farmers have welcomed the initiative, saying the government had appeared to favour and support crop producers, with yearly subsidised inputs and market access.

Paul Zakariya, executive director of the Zimbabwe Farmers’ Union commented on the programme, saying:  “Livestock producers need support [just] as crop farmers do. It appears that all these years much support was going to crops while livestock was ignored. With this initiative, this very important sector should improve in terms of animal population and quality, farm implements and machinery.”

“This is a good initiative that will get us up in a big way”.

It has been reported that the country’s nut industry is in dire straits after an export ban imposed by the Kenyan government in 2009.

According to the International Nut and Dried Fruit Council Foundation (INC) some countries have reported imports of relatively small amounts of shelled cashews from Kenya.

INC Ambassador for Kenya, Mbugua Nugi, said: “Kenya’s cashew nut industry did not report cashew exports during the last few years since the ban, either (sic) in-shell nor shelled.”

Nugi said the ban has its pros and cons, and could be lifted through an Act of parliament based on whether it had achieved its objectives, “however, its genesis and intention was and still remains to encourage more value addition through processing of raw cashew within Kenya’s borders and support the economy by providing jobs and more foreign exchange earnings”.

He added that this was “in line with the aspirations of Kenya’s vision 2030 and the desire to progress from a primary-producer-based economy towards manufacturing and an industrialised nation”.

But some farmers have been discouraged, saying they were being exploited by processors manipulating prices to their advantage, and had, according to reports, started uprooting their cashew trees.

The government is encouraging these farmers to replant the trees, and issuing free or subsidised seedlings and extension services. The seedlings are significant, as most of Kenya’s cashew trees are more than 40 years old.

There are also projects aimed at specific agronomic and market development challenges.

These will be funded by non-governmental organisations such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID); the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA); and the African Cashew Alliance (ACA) Walmart Foundation; among others, to support the value chain.

The Zimbabwe government recently announced it had found investors to commit over
US$48 million to restore CSC, which had lost markets and investment, and accrued significant debt.

Formerly the Cold Storage Commission, CSC had to dispose assets to pay debts estimated at over US$23 million, including salary arrears of US$3,5 million.

Joseph Made, minister of agriculture, mechanisation and irrigation development, told the national weekly, The Sunday Mail, that parties from the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland and Rwanda were to invest over US$48 million in CSC.

“We are undertaking surgical work at the Cold Storage Company, which will superintend Command Livestock, which targets growing livestock and beef exports,” Made said.

The investment should help boost breeding, acquire skills, upgrade CSC infrastructure, and negotiate its debt overhang – an obstacle to more investment. The foreign investment news follows an announcement last month (May 2017) that the country’s pension fund, the National Social Security Authority, would invest US$18 million in CSC.

But Eddie Cross, economist and formerly chief executive officer at the CSC, argues that it is time to consider privatising the company, even without foreign investors.

He said CSC’s problems were not financial and could not be solved by throwing money at them, and that “as [a] state-owned company the CSC cannot function as it should without the cattle producers and the meat industry being involved”.

“In my view the CSC could be privatised today, with 100% Zimbabwean control at no cost to the state; in fact I believe the state could recover, in full, the value of the loans assumed from CSC.”

Cross suggested Zimbabwe adopt Kenya and Namibia’s approach, and sell CSC and its assets to the beef industry. Namibia sold its Meat Corporation to the industry on a 25-year loan, which was paid back in 18 years.

Despite Cross’s comments, the country’s Commercial Farmers Union welcomed the news, confident that the investment would grow the beef industry and revive its meat exports.