| | Barely 15 months ago, Zimbabwe boasted of embarrassingly huge stocks of maize, its staple crop. Indeed, the Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) chairman recommended then that maize production be significantly reduced owing to the considerable storage costs and low international prices. The Grain Marketing Board (GMB) paid Z$21 million in interest charges on the maize stocks and so argued that 800,000 tonnes kept as a strategic stock be reduced to 400,000 to lessen storage costs. In total the GMB possessed stocks of 1.1 million tonnes in April 1990. |
