Mukushi Seeds reaches out to chiefs as it markets new variety

LETTICIA MAGOMBO

Mukushi Seeds has donated 300 bags of its newly developed biofortified orange pro-vitamin maize hybrid seed to Zimbabwean chiefs as it promotes the production and use of the variety in the country.

HarvestPlus developed the orange maize variety in conjunction with the government’s Crop Breeding Institute.

The seed has the richest Vitamin A content of all maize crops grown in Zimbabwe signified by its orange colour.

The seed handover ceremony, which took place yesterday, featured chiefs from across the country and each of them walked away with a bag of maize seed to showcase and grow within their constituencies.

Chief Fortune Charumbira, president of Chief’s Council of Zimbabwe, thanked the seed company for its gesture and assured them that chiefs from across the country would be made aware of the orange maize.

“In the following days when we hold our meetings in the different regions we will ask that you join us so that you can market your product directly to the people. I think that would be a good thing. We have provincial assemblies, and another meeting with the National Aids Council and that will bring forth every single chief in the country so we will make sure to disclose the dates to you.”

He also commended the nutritional benefits of the maize.

“Some of the positive aspects that I picked up are that it doesn’t require a lot of time to grow and with money issues early maturing is the way to go. The aspect of it being rich in Vitamin A is also of benefit and will help us a lot. I am also a farmer so the 50kg you have given me I will personally plant it all.”

However, due to Zimbabwe’s history with yellow maize and its association with a time of great hunger in the nation the chief cautioned the company about the willingness of the general populace to partake.

“There will be some resistance especially considering the colour of the maize so the people will take some time to convince. The yellow maize is known as stock feed and has an unappetizing taste compared to the white maize but, if the product can distinguish itself it will be planted country wide especially if it’s readily available.”

Mukushi Seeds MD John MacRobert said the donations was to inform rural farmers of the existence of different varieties of maize from the ones they are used to.

“We are used to growing white maize in Zimbabwe and there is a little bit of yellow maize that we grow as stock feed. But we are presenting orange maize and orange maize is different from the other two types of maize. Orange maize has a high vitamin content in the grain and that gives much better nutrition to the maize, the mealie meal or the food you eat from that,” MacRobert said.

“A farmer who grows orange maize will find that it grows almost identically to the kind of maize he/she is used to.”

He said the fact that the variety was developed in Zimbabwe means that the farmer who grows it is not going “to find something that is very different, the yield potential is very good, this yield is drought tolerant, has good disease resistance and can yield up to 12 or so tonnes per hectare under good conditions”.

MacRobert added that the maize could be grown in any part of the country.

He said that reaching out to the chiefs was also a way to market the product to rural farmers who might be interested in growing the variety.

“We decided to go with chiefs because they have influence where the farmers are, especially in the rural areas where most of the grain is grown in this country. So the chiefs have influence with the sabhukus and so on. So that was one of the approaches we took. The other approach is more of a commercial one where we are saying let’s distribute this seed through the retail network and offer some incentive to buy the seed so we are giving a lower price than normal maize at the moment and we are also giving farmers some vegetable seed for free if they buy this seed.”

Zimbabwe Farmers Union secretary general Paul Zakariya commended the company for going through the chiefs to present the maize seed as he said they are the gateways to rural farmers.