eBusiness Weekly
Enacy Mapakame
Zimbabwe’s leading seed producer, Seed Co, is anticipating a bump in sales volumes and profitability as regional governments increase their agriculture input support programmes.
The growth will also be pushed by increased market share in key markets particularly in East Africa with adoption of a range of seed varieties.
Seed Co also has operations in Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania and Zambia.
Briefing shareholders at the group’s annual general meeting in Harare yesterday, group chief executive Morgan Nzwere, indicated governments across the region with its operations were working on increasing their input support schemes.
In Malawi for instance, government is increasing funding by 25 percent as it seeks to support more families.
Countries like Kenya and Tanzania are expected to rebound and increase their production after experiencing some droughts as well as product supply constraints.
Nzwere said the Zambian government input programme was also continuing and approximately 40 percent of the order was being returned to the open tender system to address some of the challenges experienced in prior year.
“In Zimbabwe, the Government funded agricultural programs are expected to continue having tremendously boosted the national harvest.
From lows of around 500 000 tonnes the current harvest is now near the 2 000 000 tonne mark, and the country very much close to self-sufficiency, with Seed Co varieties having played a pivotal role in this turnaround story,” said Nzwere.
Local maize seed requirement for both the Presidential Input Scheme and Command Agriculture Programme is 23 000 tonnes to support 1,6 million households.
Sorghum and soya beans requirements stand at 1 000 tonnes for 200 000 households and 10 000 tonnes for 100 000 hectares respectively.
Three years ago, Seed Co acquired Prime Seeds to enable it to venture into vegetable seed business leveraging on its technical partner, Limagrain’s extensive knowledge of the sector.
Nzwere said the vegetable seed units have now been fully rolled out to Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Kenya and are expected to start gaining traction.
“Demand in Angola remains promising with early enquiries having been received,” he said.
Under Quton, a cotton seed order of 7 000 tonnes has already been confirmed although lower than last year’s order of 8000 tonnes remained a good start to the season with the open market also expected to respond positively.
Volumes produced in Nigeria improved to 600 tonnes in current year with market development efforts gaining traction
Nzwere added the business development work was continuing in Francophone West Africa with a particular focus on Burkina Faso, Cote Ivoire, Senegal, Cameroon, Mali and Benin.
“The group is focusing on working capital efficiencies through optimal stocks management and reduced debtor impairments,” he said.
