ZIMBABWE’S wheat farmers are struggling to find markets after producing a record crop this season, a leading banker said yesterday, as he rallied Africa’s agricultural sector to seek market guarantees for the crops they produce.
The southern African country’s wheat harvest is expected to exceed 600 000 tonnes during the 2024/25 season, according to the latest forecasts from the Agriculture ministry.
If Zimbabwe peaks beyond this output, the rise will represent a 6% surge from 563 961 tonnes produced during the 2023/24 season.
Authorities say an additional 2 000 hectares were planted with wheat this season, bringing the total cultivated area to 122 000 hectares.
With the country’s wheat consumption estimated at 360 000 tonnes a year, Zimbabwe projects a surplus of nearly 240 000 tonnes this year, which can be exported.
According to Agriculture minister Anxious Masuka, negotiations were underway with Zambia, Mozambique and Tanzania to export part of the crop. But in a presentation made during the CEO Africa Annual Roundtable 2025 yesterday, Francis Macheka, chief executive officer at AFC Holdings, said farmers were battling to access markets after the good season.
“How can we capacitate (farmers) to ensure they actually produce and be able to give us a commodity that cannot just guarantee their own food security, but also guarantee that we can export to other countries?” he asked.
“And we produced a lot of wheat this year. We struggle to sell it. We need somebody to come and buy it.”
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Macheka spoke as agricultural experts working with smallholder farmers in Manicaland province said horticultural products were being thrown away due to lack of markets.
Other African farmers were also facing a similar problem, according to experts.
“There is a bit of things that we must do to ensure that we can actually have a resilient approach to productivity,” Macheka told delegates.
“While the potential for Africa, for instance, is huge, there is quite a number of challenges that we must face as a people.
“There is a real challenge for the continent to end up with productivity that can carry the potential that it shows. We certainly have abundant land that’s available.
“In fact, Africa has got the most remaining land that can be used to feed the world. We have abundant water,” the AFC CEO added, as he switched to the situation in Zimbabwe.
He said the country was “the most dammed” in Africa.
“If you fly everywhere, there is a lot of potential that we have.
“We even have the people.
“We have the climatic conditions that can actually produce literally every commodity that you can think of.”
Macheka said for Africa to achieve its agricultural goals and succeed in transforming the sector into a big industry, one of the fundamentals to work on was diversification.
He said such a strategy would help Africa and Zimbabwe to adapt to factors such as changing weather patterns.
“In Zimbabwe, we are particularly vulnerable,” Macheka said, disclosing the current season’s rainfall forecast for Zimbabwe.
“They are saying it will possibly start in December. We should by now have started farming, but all this has changed.
“It means we must adapt to the new changes that have taken place for us to be able to remain productive and to even increase our productivity.
“So the diversification of the type of crops and livestock that we produce is a key fundamental that we must take to heart if we are going to develop this industry into a billion-dollar industry.”
Macheka said African farmers should be able to maximise the use of land, adding that there was a lot of land available.
However, much of it is not being utilised, he said.
“I said we are the most dammed nation, but a dam in itself, as you hear our minister always say, is not a business.
“It is the utilisation of that land that makes it worthwhile.
“So while we have a lot of dams, we must be able to develop irrigation systems that will be able to produce the type of commodities we want.”
He said farmers needed to collaborate with partners, noting that there were many people interested in Africa’s produce.
Collaborations, he added, would be vital in areas such as financing.
“We must be able to build capacity with our farmers.
“If you look at Zimbabwe, for instance, we have smallholder farmers, our rural farmers add up to numbers of over 2,5 million to three million people and these are the people who actually produce most of the food crops that we have. “However, they are also the most vulnerable because they rely on rain-fed agriculture,” he said.
“I have already spoken about water management.
“We need to manage our water properly and put irrigation systems that are efficient.
“We also need to have guaranteed market access.”
