Zimbabwe has secured a 200 million U.S. dollars line of credit to import maize and avert food shortages due to a drought this year, central bank governor John Mangudya said Thursday.
He said the country had enough maize stocks to last for the next eight months with imports through the loan facility expected to start in September.
“We have secured a line of credit of about 200 million dollars to pay for the maize from September thereabout going forward but still we need more,” the governor said.
The development comes as it was forecasted Zimbabwe is to continue importing maize till the year 2020. A London based group, BMI Research said there was no way the country—once the regional breadbasket —would be able to produce enough maize to feed its population in the short to medium term.
“We expect Zimbabwe to remain a net corn (maize) importer over the longer term. Over the next five years, we expect production of the grain to demonstrate moderate growth, although production will remain well below the totals seen in the early 2000s,” BMI Research said.
“We have revised downwards our 2014/15 Zimbabwean corn production forecast from 1,4 million tonnes to 742,500 tonnes. Fertiliser application rates were lower than normal as farmers were largely unable to acquire fertiliser due to delayed subsidies from the Zimbabwean government. Heavy rainfall early in the planting season also led to leaching of nutrients in various areas.
“Meanwhile, hot and dry conditions during the critical pollination phase from last January onwards further reduced yields. Over the coming years, we forecast production to increase marginally due to better yields, but production will remain well below levels seen in previous decades due to financial concerns in the farm sector,” the report said.
The BMI Research forecast covers a five-year period to 2020. It predicated that by the 2018/19 cropping season, Zimbabwe’s maize production would have grown by 43,3 percent on the 2014/15 level to 1,06 million tonnes.
“We project relatively strong growth over the long term, but the country will remain a net importer, as most of this growth is due to base effects,” said the forecast.
Quantity of maize for 2016
Meanwhile the governor did not specify the quantity of maize to be imported and from where, agriculture minister Joseph Made recently said the country will need to import up to 700,000 tonnes of the staple maize to avert hunger as the El Nino weather pattern brings poor rains and affects crops in the country.
Zimbabwe has been importing grain over the past few years to cover for shortfalls due to poor weather conditions.
However, a devastating drought this year has pushed up grain import requirements for the country which is battling a serious liquidity crunch.
According to the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee, an estimated 1.5 million rural Zimbabweans will face food shortages in the first three months of this year.
Agriculture is critical to Zimbabwe’s economy, generating 30 percent of export earnings and contributing 19 percent to GDP. Xinhua/Agencies