Fertilizer Markets and Finance

Zimbabwe will have to import about 70,000 metric tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer to meet demand this season, the Chronicle reported, citing Mishek Kachere, a spokesman for Zimbabwe Fertilizer Corp. and Windmill (Pvt) Ltd.

Fertilizer makers have about 25,000 tons of the crop nutrient stockpiled, insufficient to meet demand of about 150,000 tons, the Bulawayo-based Chronicle said on its website. The producers can’t manufacture enough locally because they’re still owed funds from the last season, according to the report.

Zimbabwe expects normal to below-normal rains this farming season, which runs from November to May for crops such as corn, soy, barley and oil seeds. Demand for compound fertilizers, usually a mixture of ammonium nitrate and other chemicals, can be met locally, the state-controlled newspaper said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Latham in Johannesburg at in Harare atblatham@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin in Johannesburg atasguazzin@bloomberg.net.

Zimbabwe looks set to reverse a trend of falling corn exports after the troubled nation, once known as the bread-basket of southern Africa, revealed the loss of nearly half its crop to drought.

Zimbabwe’s agriculture minister, Joseph Made, warned that 45% of the 1.69m hectares of corn that growers planted this season “is a write-off” following a prolonged dry spell.

The loss meant Zimbabwe, which had been expected to see a rise in corn production, would harvest 1m tonnes this year, a drop of more than one-quarter on the 2011 result, the ministry said.

And even though the country has 400,000 tonnes of corn in store, following a 2011 harvest which, at 1.35m tonnes, was the best in a decade, Zimbabwe will need a further 400,000 tonnes in corn imports.

Read more at Agrimoney

The state media has quoted Agriculture Minister Joseph Made as stating that the country faces a serious grain deficit, blaming a ‘prolonged dry spell’. He told the Herald newspaper that the government had halted sales from its ‘strategic grain reserves’ following the bleak results of a state assessment of the country’s maize crops.

The CFU’s President, Charles Taffs, told SW Radio Africa on Tuesday that he agreed with Made that Zimbabwe is in trouble agriculturally, with the country once again unable to feed itself. But he disagreed with the weather being blamed for the situation.

“We can’t continue to blame drought. It’s quite absurd that this is still used as an excuse,” Taffs said, adding that the reason behind the deficits is that “agriculture continues to be undermined.”

Read more at The Zimbabwean

The maize growing on John Gapare’s three-hectare plot in rural Mutoko, some 90km northeast of the Zimbabwean capital Harare, is of uneven height and yellowing, with some plants already wilting, and for the first time in nearly a decade the 50-year-old farmer is expecting a poor harvest.

There are strong indications that many of the farmers who received land under the controversial land grab program, sold most of the free inputs they received from government.

This came to light following revelations by Finance Minister Tendai Biti that the country’s ‘underperforming’ farmers have received over $2 billion since the formation of the coalition government in 2009. This also showed that the claims by Robert Mugabe that Biti is deliberately starving newly resettled farmers, are not true.

Many of the farmers who received large tracts of land are politicians and include a number of senior ZANU PF officials. Many of Mugabe’s senior military commanders also received farms, forcibly taken off commercial farmers.

Mugabe insists the land reform program was initiated to right the wrongs of the colonial era, when black farmers were forced off their land and forced into less fertile areas, while the best land was reserved for white farmers.

Read more at The Zimbabwean

With Zimbabwean farmers scrambling to find fertilizer at a price they can afford, sources say the Grain Marketing Board, which was entrusted with distribution of subsidized agricultural inputs, has been crippled by executive branch interference.

Parliamentary agriculture committee member Moses Jiri said GMB boss Albert Mandizha told his committee that the executive branch led by President Robert Mugabe draws up all programs for the state entity including the distribution of agricultural inputs.

Jiri said Mandizha and four other GMB managers said political interference has seriously hurt the agricultural agency, which is struggling to obtain reimbursement of US$19 million from the government which it spent on various agricultural input schemes.

He said the GMB managers also blamed current fertilizer shortages on a lack of finance and what they said was the Finance Ministry’s late release of funds.

Jiri said the GMB executives did not rule out corruption as another issue affecting the performance of the state enterprise. “They indicated to us that it is difficult to nail the culprits due to lack of evidence,” Jiri said.

Meanwhile, farmers in Gutu district, Masvingo, have protested what they charge is the looting by senior politicians in the local ZANU-PF branch of farming inputs made available through the Grain Marketing Board, Obert Pepukai reports.