The Grain Marketing Board (GMB) says farmers have delivered more than 600 000 tonnes of grain, surpassing the country’s Grain Strategic Reserve requirement.
GMB chief executive officer Rockie Mutenha also revealed that they will on Sunday announce over 1 400 mobile buying points to decongest their depots in compliance with COVID-19 safety guidelines. He said:
We are receiving about 12 000 tonnes on a daily basis. So far, we have over 600 000 tonnes of grains.
Over half a million of the grains is maize so our depots are busy as farmers intensify deliveries.
… We have come up with 1 400 collections and mobile buying points which will be announced this Sunday. We want to ensure farmers do not congest our depots.
We also encourage farmers to group and move their grains to one collection point and approach their nearest depot manager to assist them with transport to ferry grains to GMB.
The GMB said over 80 per cent of all grain delivered so far has been paid for.
Zimbabwe is set to achieve a record harvest of 2.7 million tonnes of maize this season following a good rainy season.
The annual national maize requirement is 1.8 million tonnes.