By Delisa Thwala
The first National Maize Corporation (NMC)made a profit of E1,679,763.00 in the current reporting period against the budgeted loss of E1,176,439.00.
This resulted in a positive variance of E318 076 equivalent to 27%.
A report by the Ministry of Agriculture contained this information. Reporting that in the first quarter, NMC recorded a loss of E2 538 125.94.
The report further states that, the profits are as a result of favourable maize prices due to availability of maize locally during the quarter as well as other income increasing from fumigation, transportation and drying services which increased profit margins.
“Under the input subsidy programme where the government offers a fifty percent subsidy on farming inputs for maize, beans and sorghum, the target budget of E32 Million was reached and payments we stopped on August 28, 2024,’’ reads the report in part.
However, by the time of cutting of, some farmer organisations had made electronic funds transfers for their membership that had not reflected in the project account only to reflect later to indicate that total paid by farmers stood at E34 430 400.00 with a total of 5 676 farmers having paid.
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Of the total number of farmers who paid, 5496 paid for maize, 178 for beans and 2 for sorghum. A total of 4 146 farmers have already collected their inputs (4088 for maize and 58 for beans).
Three regional Vusela meetings were held where stakeholders met and discussed issues under the project.
Under the tractor hire programme, which is a government subsidized initiative where farmers are expected to pay E400 per hour per tractor for services such as ploughing, ripping, haulage, ridging, harrowing, and planting while government contributes E180.
The report states that an accumulated total of 20900 hours were registered compared to 10149 hours in the previous quarter.
“The increase was caused by the increase in demand for our services which marked the beginning of the peak season during this reporting period. Hours worked were 7717 with a balance of 2935 hours.
The number of functional tractors was 157 out of 243 tractors,’’ reads the report.
The report further mentions that, repairing the non-functional tractors is on-going and the target is to have them fixed by the end of October 2024 which was caused by a delay in delivery of parts.
Meanwhile in ensuring that the Corporation is fully resourced, the recruitment of a substantive Chief Financial Officer was completed during the quarter under review through the approval of SCOPE.
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The CFO started her duties on November 1, 2024.
Worth mentioning is that, the National Maize Corporation (NMC) is a fully state-owned enterprise that has E260 million
The Corporation was established in 1985 in accordance with the Companies Act of 1912 as amended.
The vision of the Corporation is the Catalyst of Staple Food Sovereignty in The Kingdom of Eswatini. Whilst the mission is ‘Creating a Vibrant Grain Industry producing for National Demand, Reserves and Export.’
The Corporation is currently involved in commodity trading of white maize, premium rice, and sugar beans.
Additionally, the corporation manages the Tractor Hire Services as well as the Farm Input Subsidy Programme on behalf of Government whilst also involved in farmer development and the promotion of white maize and beans commercialisation in the country.
The Corporation managed to train 1479 farmers on Good Agricultural Practices on grains across the country, an increase from the 1052 farmers trained in the previous quarter.
The target of training 1108 farmers in the quarter was met and exceeded. The promotions conducted in the period, resulted in the contracting of 420ha from 51 farmers.
During the period, 34ha in the Lubombo region was planted with maize under irrigation (August and September).
Maize received from local farmers increased by 2146mt from 1691mt in the last quarter to 3837mt in the current quarter.
The increase was as expected during the period since they were just coming out of the harvesting season in the previous quarter.
Favourable producer price coupled with improved efforts from the corporation including availability of vehicles for maize collections at community level contributed significantly to the increase in tonnages received from local farmers.
Producer price was reviewed during the period but was not adjusted from the existing E5 800 per ton.