TINASHE MAKICHI
Cooking oil firm, Surface Wilmar, is targeting small scale farmers as it seeks to boost production of soya beans, a critical raw material used in the production of cooking oil, the company’s CEO Sylvester Mangani has said.
Over the years, Surface Wilmar has been focusing on big farmers.
Mangani told Business Times that the company will remodel its contract farming strategy to include smallholder farmers.
He said the strategy was, however, still under discussion with the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Resettlement.
“This time we are also focusing on smallholder farmers and we are still engaging the Ministry of Agriculture.
“We are still discussing the modalities so that this model will be able to fit with already running government programmes.
“The issue of hectares and the size of funding is something that is still under discussion,” Mangani said.
The local cooking oil industry has been battling foreign currency shortages critical for sourcing of raw materials.
On several occasions, international suppliers of crude oil for manufacturing of cooking oil have threatened to close tap on Zimbabwe’s cooking oil manufacturers due to the industry’s failure to settle legacy debts, estimated to be close to US$100m.
The situation has on various occasions threatened to plunge the country into a biting cooking oil crisis due to raw materials shortage.
Lack of a clear plan to settle legacy debts ring-fenced by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and delays in disbursement of foreign currency from the auction system has also greatly affected cooking oil companies’ capacity to secure crude oil from international suppliers.
Due to failure by local companies to service their international obligations, some foreign suppliers are even proposing debt to equity arrangements as they frantically look at recovering the legacy debts.
