Zimbabwe: Call to Promote Local Small Grains Value Chains

Local Small Grains Value Chains

Zimbabwe should consider putting in place policies for the adoption, promotion and development of small grains value chains, experts said this week.Small grains, sorghum, pearl and finger millet, are believed to be critical not only to Zimbabwe's nutritional and food security needs but could be a solution to the persistent droughts as they are drought tolerant in nature.

Although they are ranked second as staple cereal crop after maize in Zimbabwe, stakeholders in the small grains value chain development argue that there is no policy to push for the adoption of the small grains.

On Tuesday, stakeholders gathered at a validation workshop on Evidence-based Small Grains Value Chain Development in Zimbabwe, agreed that for the effective adoption of small grains, a number of initiatives should be carried out.

While presenting the study findings, Mr Cornelius Dube from the Zimbabwe Economic Policy Analysis and Research Unit said there is need to enhance demand for small grains seed to motivate seed houses to invest in their production.

"As a policy, all Government initiated farmer input support should include small grains seeds. Currently, even some areas that are not suitable for maize are still benefiting from maize seed. Although (the Grain Marketing Board) GMB also buys small grains in addition to maize, the information is not known among many of the small grains farmers.

"There is need for more GMB buying points for small grains that are decentralised and very close to the farmers to enhance market access.

"The current pricing for small grains is considered less favourable, as these take more time to process while the yield is far below that of maize," said Mr Dube.

The stakeholders said the policies should help to ensure that the harvesting and processing of small grains is technology based and this could include duty free importation of the low cost machines as well as incentivising their production locally by technology based firms.

Zimbabwe should also join its regional counterparts in promoting the small grains value chain development while zeroing in more on climate change adaptation as well as the nutritional value they possess over maize.

Contributing to debate at the small grains value chains development workshop, director of public affairs in the Office of the President and Cabinet, Ambassador Mary Mubi, said there should be conscious effort to market small grains adoption.

"We are not seeing the value of these small grains. We are not telling our people about the nutritional value in small grains. We also need to promote the adoption of small grains, teach the young people and hold festivals. I said to one of our bakers that why have you not included small grains in your products such as biscuits," said Amb Mubi.

The study's main objectives were to assess the small grains value chain to identify challenges for the adoption of small grains as a food security strategy for Zimbabwe and identified gaps/opportunities that impact production, marketing and processing of small grains.

Some of the problems identified by the study include that there were no clear markets hence the decision by farmers to produce only at a small scale compared to maize and that the producer price for small grains is too low relative to the labour requirements.

Furthermore, the consumption patterns by Zimbabweans which are inclined towards maize also affect small grains production trends, small grains are mostly used at household levels than for commercial purposes.

"A reorientation is required for large scale production. Seed houses also not stocking because of lack of demand: chicken-egg situation," said Mr Dube.