Zimbabwe has become the first African country to achieve self-sufficiency in wheat by 2022/2023. The country, which anticipates further growth in local supply of the cereal, wants to ship its surplus production to the Southern African sub-region.
Zimbabwe wants to export its surplus wheat to Mozambique from the new 2023/2024 harvest. This was reported by the local daily Chronicle on July 4, quoting John Basera, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture.
“We want to export wheat for the first time. Recently, a delegation from Mozambique visited Mashonaland Occidental to see how we grow wheat. There’s a big market in Mozambique, so we have to aim for that. Africa needs to produce its own food”, he stressed.
ALSO READ: Morocco: agri-food exports to the USA reach $439 million in 2022
Zimbabwe, which consumes 360,000 tonnes of wheat a year, achieved self-sufficiency at the end of the 2022/2023 season, with a harvest totalling over 375,000 tonnes. For the new 2023/2024 season, which began last April, the authorities are expecting this volume to grow by almost 9% to a new record of 408,000 tonnes.
The Zimbabwean industry should then have a production surplus of almost 40,000 tonnes of the cereal. In Mozambique, demand for wheat is even greater. According to Usda data, the country is 98% dependent on imports to cover its consumption needs, which amount to almost 800,000 tonnes a year.