Secretary for Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement, Mr Ringson Chitsiko told Parliamentarians that Zimbabwe has enough grain reserves to feed the nation for nine months.
Chitsiko said this when he appeared before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Peace and Security on Friday on the food security situation in the country. He was accompanied by Agritex principal director Mr Joseph Gondo and Grain Marketing Board operations manager Mr Felton Kamambo. The committee is chaired by former Health Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa.
Mr Chitsiko said as at December 3, the country’s maize stocks stood at 1 179 756 and small grains amounted to 135 935 tonnes. The country also had 119 794 tonnes of wheat as of Thursday. Said Chitsiko:
For the past two seasons, Zimbabwe has not imported any major grains such as maize. We have 1 179 156 tonnes of maize, which is twice our mandatory Strategic Grain Reserve of 500 000 tonnes. The nation is comfortable since the surplus is enough to see us through nine months. This means the supply of the staple diet in the country is out of danger. It is important that if we do not work around the El Nino-induced drought, the glory can vanish. We are working on measures to adapt to the potential effects of El Nino.
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