Innscor intensifies forays into agric sector

LIVINGSTONE MARUFU

Cash-rich Innscor Africa Holdings has intensified investments into wheat production as part of a strategy to become self-sufficient and reduce reliance on imports, the company’s CEO, Julian Schonken has said.

Speaking at the company’s listing ceremony at the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange last week, Schonken revealed Innscor Africa Holdings, through its contract wheat farming scheme, contributed 22% of Zimbabwe’s total wheat output.

“The group recently concluded production on around 13,000 hectares of wheat, contributing 78,000 metric tonnes of the local wheat produced for the past season,” he said.

Last year, Zimbabwe planted 80 000 hectares of winter wheat and Innscor was the main contributor of the private sector when it planted 13 000 hectares out of the 20 000 hectares that the companies planted last year.

“The group is supporting local agriculture. In this regard there is an extensive contract-growing scheme in place to enhance local production of key commodities required for the production of critical food products.

“We have around 34,000 hectares of contract farming operating across Zimbabwe under summer/winter rotation (covering maize, soya beans, and wheat), and managed by Growth and PHI.

“We will continue to enhance and grow our contract farming schemes as these represent key sources of raw material commodities for many of our business units,” he said.

Schonken said fertiliser prices continue to rocket owing to the Russian-Ukraine conflict as raw materials for fertilisers come from the two nations.

Resultantly, Innscor has invested in a new plant operation.

“We have recently made a significant investment in a new fertiliser production operation, Nutrimaster. This investment has been made to help farmers obtain consistent levels of competitively priced fertiliser inputs,” he said.

Meanwhile, Schonken said Innscor, will in the next two years invest US$127m on various projects across the country to boost production and reduce import dependency.

“(The group) closed a US$71m investment programme for the 12 months ending June 30, 2022, and is now focused on executing a further investment pipeline of US$56m in the current period, ending June 30, 2023.

“This will bring our total investment to around US$127m for the 2022 and 2023 financial periods,” he said.