To enhance food security and create employment opportunities, the Zimbabwe government has invited agribusinesses and private players that depend on raw materials from the agriculture sector to enter into production and marketing contracts with farmers
As reported in Xinhua, In a recent statement, the Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) said it plans to encourage local sourcing of raw materials and support growth of the agricultural sector, while letting contractors ring-fence their production requirements
The AMA called on contractors to secure at least 40% of their annual raw material requirements through contracting growers, saying that contractors are required in the production of maize, soya bean, sunflower, sesame and cotton crops etc.
AMA added that it has since registered farmers into production clusters that contractors can benefit from in the forthcoming cropping season.
In the 2020-21 season, Zimbabwe produced about 2.8 million tons of the staple maize crop, a record output in recent years, against the national consumption of 1.8 million tons annually, added the source.
