The Central Bank of Zimbabwe (CBZ) has issued a US$50mn bond to finance the 2019/2020 agriculture season
The bond instrument is expected to finance the importation of farming inputs, specifically for maize and soya bean with an aim to improve the production of two important food crops.
As reported in The Herald, agriculture financing is one of the major challenges facing the sector, which is the backbone of Zimbabwe’s economy.
The year 2019 was tough for the country’s agricultural sector due to poor crop production, disease outbreaks, chemical shortage and high cost of inputs among others, stated the source. The experts are predicting another bad 2019/20 rain season, characterised by low rainfall patterns.
The CBZ Bond will be under the commercial contract farming programme that is being spearheaded through the CBZ Agro Yield (Pvt) Limited.
CBZ Bank stated that it intends to issue a series of 270-day bond instruments to finance the procurement of farming inputs for maize and soya bean that are not available on the local market for the 2019/20 farming season under the commercial contract farming.
