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Crops will not fail due to lack of fertiliser as the country has enough

Lawrence Chitumba, Harare Bureau
The fertiliser industry in Zimbabwe has assured the nation that they have adequate stocks of fertilisers for the season.

In a joint statement the industry players revealed that manufacturing plants at ZFC and Windmill were running at optimum capacity while Sable Chemicals, the only manufacturer of ammonium nitrate in the country had put in place measures to ensure the continued manufacture of ammonium nitrate at the Kwekwe factory.

Zimbabwe requires a total of 150 000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate and similar tonnage of compound D fertiliser for the current farming season.

The statement comes as the summer cropping season has started which has been characterised by shortages in the previous years.

“The fertiliser value chain plays an important role in Zimbabwe’s economy and is key to the success of Government economic policies and programmes such as ZImAsset and the 10-Point Plan.

“The fertiliser industry in Zimbabwe continues to receive good support from the Government and, in turn, stands ready to support farmers with all their fertiliser requirements.

“It is therefore important that farmers use the proven fertilisers that they already know which is particularly important given the short season that is being anticipated, for which there is no room for experiment,” read the statement.

The industry also hinted that as capacity utilisation increases, there would be scope for further price reductions.

Since September 2015 the price of Compound D, for example went down from $640 to $550 while ammonium nitrate moved from $720 to $660 per tonne from depots and stockists.

Windmill and ZFC have 49 depots and 105 stockists nationwide located in all farming areas which are meant to make fertilisers available to farmers much more conveniently.