By Promise Dube
The government has announced a duty waiver on the importation of rice and potato seed, claiming there is a shift in starch consumption towards these foods.
Rice and potato seeds are predominantly imports and the government also discussed the importance of considering more hectares to grow rice in light of rising consumption.
As part of its attempts to mitigate the effects of the drought, the government has also announced that households will be able to import cooking oil and maize meal duty-free starting in July while the private sector will be permitted to import genetically modified maize.
Speaking at the post- cabinet briefing, Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development, Dr Anxious Masuka, said people were now eating more rice and potatoes as alternatives, especially the younger generation.
“Then there are those that consider rice and potato as alternatives so many of the young generation think that maize sadza (isitshwala) isn’t so their primary diet is now based on rice, potatoes and others for their starch component,” Dr Masuka said.
“Then there are substitutes for foods that we can use, for example wheat flour in place of maize. We considered all that and said 15 percent of this population -the young generation – now prefer to consume rice and potatoes.”
Dr Masuka said in the context of rice, Zimbabwe only produces less than one percent of that rice requirement yet people consume 120 000 metric tonnes of rice every month, which is predominantly imported.
“So we said why do we make that Value Added Tax (VAT)-able, why do we make it expensive so why can’t we remove the VAT on it so that it becomes more affordable,” he said, adding it motivated the Cabinet’s decision to remove.
“We also looked at seed potato we are able to produce 40 percent of our seed potato requirement, we consume 400 000 to 500 000 metric tonnes of irish table potato so for the 50 percent of seed that we import will ultimately lead to more expensive table potato purchases, if we removed this component at input level this will be more affordable,” the minister said.
“Then we looked at households and said the three worst affected aspects we looked at cooking oil, maize meal and we said perhaps we should allow duty free importation by household from July onwards and what we defined as a household consumption is what the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and Ministry of Agriculture normally come up with between 30 and 40 kg a month for mealie meal, perhaps Two litres of 750 depending on what we decide on shortages that are in the country is what they will allow for households.”
The agriculture minister added the private sector will continue to import maize for consumption and if so wish, import genetically modified maize.
However, this will be done “under strict supervision for mealing and distribution and styled for stock feed.”
Dr Masuka said Zimbabwe’s food security is to be premised on consideration of wheat as a serial crop either for direct consumption by people as bread or mealie meal or for a swap arrangement.
