Zimbabwe: No winds of change at the Grain Marketing Board
HARARE: The Zimbabwean government has announced new measures to boost local cereal purchases through its crisis-ridden Grain Marketing Board (GMB), but farmers are not convinced the plan will work.
In early June the finance ministry said it had secured US$100 million for a revolving fund to support the GMB's procurement of grain through its countrywide depots.
The board had a long-standing monopoly on cereal purchases until March 2009, when private traders were allowed into the market - a response to the GMB's inability pay decent prices to farmers, which fuelled a parallel market.
