Harare- Sunflower deliveries have fallen 8% to 5,181 tonnes between 1 April and 24 July 2026, from 5,631 tonnes a year earlier, making it the only crop in the Agricultural Marketing Authority's (AMA) latest update to record a decline. The result is particularly striking because sunflower carries the highest producer price among the major crops bought by the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) and has been designated by Government as the principal oilseed around which Zimbabwe's cooking oil self-sufficiency strategy is being built.

The commercial problem is visible at farm level. ZimGold's sunflower contracting model has previously provided farmers with seed and guaranteed offtake, demonstrating the importance of connecting production finance to a defined market. “We will provide seed and a guaranteed offtake at market prices across our buying depots,” a company spokesperson said when the arrangement was introduced. The model captures the missing link in Zimbabwe's sunflower strategy: the producer price becomes meaningful to the farmer only when the farmer has the inputs to plant and confidence that the crop will be purchased after harvest.

CBZ's head of farming operations Collins Mpofu made the same connection when discussing structured finance in the oilseed sector, saying, “Any production is futile if it does not have a market to absorb the product.” His observation is borne out by the sunflower numbers because the crop is receiving a higher official price than soya while its formal deliveries are moving in the opposite direction.

Sunflower's weak formal deliveries are particularly striking at farmer level because the crop is carrying the highest official producer price among the major crops. Tawanda Musekiwa, a sunflower farmer from Goromonzi who participated in a contract farming programme, previously described the importance of payment certainty to producers: “We are excited about the programme as the company has assured us of cash-on-delivery which boosts farmers’ confidence.”

GMB set the sunflower producer price at US$670.46 a tonne for the 2025/26 season, compared with US$583.01 for soyabeans and US$364.75 for maize and traditional grains. Sunflower therefore commands a premium of US$87.45 a tonne over soya and US$305.71 over maize, yet soyabean deliveries increased 58% during the same marketing period while sunflower deliveries declined 8%. The divergence makes it difficult to attribute sunflower's weak formal marketing performance to the price offered at the state buying point.

The policy objective makes the gap more consequential. Government designated sunflower as the oilseed crop of choice and set a 160,000 hectare target for the 2025/26 season as part of its drive towards cooking oil self sufficiency. Sunflower also carries a higher oil yield per tonne of seed than soya, strengthening its role in a strategy designed to increase domestic edible oil production and reduce dependence on imported crude and refined products.

The issue therefore sits deeper in the value chain. A high producer price does not provide seed and fertiliser before planting, finance the crop through the season, arrange transport at harvest or guarantee timely collection and payment. For a smallholder farmer, the commercial incentive is determined by the entire chain from input access to final offtake, which explains why a crop can carry the country's highest GMB price while failing to generate a corresponding increase in formal deliveries.

The difference is particularly visible against soya, where contractors provide inputs, crushers create demand for the seed and the stockfeed industry provides an established market for the resulting meal. The farmer enters the season with a clearer route from production to sale, while sunflower producers have a less developed network connecting input finance, aggregation, processing and guaranteed buyers.

Sunflower's production structure adds to that weakness because much of the crop is produced by smallholders as a relatively low input and drought tolerant crop, including in areas where rainfall is less reliable. Its resilience gives it agricultural value, yet the same smallholder base can remain disconnected from formal contractors, processors and commercial buyers, leaving some production outside the marketing channels captured by AMA.

The 5,181 tonnes reported by AMA therefore represent formal marketed deliveries rather than total national production. Farmers can retain seed, sell through informal channels or process it locally, meaning the formal figure does not measure everything produced. Its 8% decline remains important, however, because it shows that the organised marketing channel is not expanding in line with the policy ambition for the crop.

The downstream consequences extend directly into Zimbabwe's cooking oil position. The country's crushers have about 448,000 tonnes of installed capacity, much of which remains underutilised when adequate seed is unavailable, while national cooking oil requirements are estimated at roughly 180 million litres a year. Zimbabwe continues to import crude and soybean oil to close the domestic supply gap, with soybean oil imports alone stabilising at around 30,000 to 40,000 tonnes annually.

Between 2018 and 2023, Zimbabwe imported about US$1 billion worth of crude oil for cooking oil production, according to the data used in the original analysis. Sunflower is one of the crops Government expects to help reduce that dependence, yet 5,181 tonnes of formal deliveries provide only a small feedstock base for an industry with hundreds of thousands of tonnes of installed crushing capacity.

The contrast with soya therefore provides the clearest diagnosis. In the same marketing period and under the same broad agricultural conditions, soyabean deliveries increased 58% to 45,744 tonnes while sunflower deliveries fell 8% to 5,181 tonnes, despite sunflower carrying the higher GMB price. The difference lies in the depth of the commercial infrastructure surrounding each crop, with soya supported by contracting, crushing demand and a large stockfeed market while sunflower remains less integrated into a coordinated production and processing chain.

That makes the sunflower problem more amenable to structural intervention than to another increase in the producer price. The mechanism that has supported soya, linking input finance to a buyer and a defined industrial market, can be applied to sunflower at greater scale, allowing farmers to access the advertised price without having to finance the entire production cycle independently.

Zimbabwe has already tested elements of this approach. ZimGold offered sunflower seed and guaranteed offtake to farmers in the Midlands, with farmers encouraged to form clusters where individual holdings were below the minimum contracted area. The arrangement was designed to establish a sustainable raw material supply for domestic cooking oil production and provides evidence that contract based sunflower production can operate within Zimbabwe's existing agricultural system.

The scale of the challenge becomes clearer through the crop's history. Zimbabwe produced 11,117 tonnes of sunflower in the 2021/22 season before production was projected to rise to 90,479 tonnes in 2022/23 following increased smallholder participation and Government promotion, while production reached 38,828 tonnes in the 2024/25 summer season. The volatility shows that farmers can respond to incentives, but the sector has yet to establish the institutional depth required to sustain higher production through successive seasons.

Zimbabwe also lacks the long commercial history in sunflower that exists in some other oilseed industries. Its expansion has largely been driven by smallholder participation and Government programmes, leaving the sector dependent on the development of seed systems, contractor finance, aggregation, collection and processing infrastructure rather than relying on a mature commercial network that already connects farmers to crushers.

The agronomic case remains strong. Sunflower is suited to drier parts of Zimbabwe, has a relatively short growing period and can tolerate moisture stress, making it relevant as rainfall becomes less reliable. The Midlands and Matabeleland regions have particular suitability, while the concentration of agricultural production in these areas provides a potential foundation for local aggregation and processing.

The Midlands also presents a potentially important geographic connection between agriculture and the broader economy. The province contains major ferrochrome, steel and platinum operations and the associated income generating activity, while surrounding agricultural areas provide suitable conditions for sunflower production. A Midlands based crushing hub supplied by surrounding smallholder farmers could therefore connect local seed production with nearby consumer markets while reducing the distance between collection, processing and distribution.

There is already evidence of downstream capacity waiting for more organised supply. Agri Value Chain can process about 15,000 tonnes of sunflower seed annually but has faced difficulty securing sufficient commodity on the local market, with inadequate market information and weak offtake guarantees identified as constraints. The existence of processing capacity alongside inadequate formal seed deliveries captures the structural problem more clearly than the price alone can: the country has parts of the value chain in place, but they are not sufficiently connected.

The international market strengthens the case for building that domestic chain. Russia and Ukraine remain among the world's largest sunflower producers, while global sunflower production was forecast to increase in 2025/26, leaving world supply concentrated among a relatively small number of producing countries. For an importing country such as Zimbabwe, developing local production and crushing provides a way to reduce exposure to external supply disruptions and the foreign currency cost associated with imported edible oils.

South Africa offers one regional model through which Zimbabwe can assess the institutional requirements of a larger sunflower industry. The country produces roughly 600,000 to 800,000 tonnes of sunflower annually, concentrated mainly in the Free State and North West, where commercial farming, formal seed systems, aggregation infrastructure and crushing capacity operate together. The relevance for Zimbabwe lies in that integration because the crop is supported by institutions that connect production to processing and markets.

Tanzania offers a different model because its sunflower industry is predominantly smallholder based. The country produced more than 480,000 tonnes of sunflower seed during the 2022/23 season, with production concentrated in Singida, Dodoma, Rukwa, Iringa and Njombe. Its expansion has been supported by investment in processing, contract farming, seed systems and policies designed to reduce edible oil imports, demonstrating that a smallholder production structure can support a substantial commercial oilseed industry when the institutions surrounding farmers are developed alongside production.

Tanzania has also used fiscal and agricultural policy to strengthen domestic processing, including support for processing equipment and improved seed systems. The lesson for Zimbabwe is therefore institutional rather than simply agronomic: farmers need access to inputs and finance before planting, processors need confidence that adequate seed will reach their plants and buyers need predictable volumes and payment arrangements.

Those three conditions, a buyer, a price and predictable payment timing, define the commercial environment the Zimbabwean sunflower farmer needs. Zimbabwe already has the price, because US$670.46 a tonne is the highest GMB producer price among the major crops covered by the 2025/26 structure, but the other two elements remain less developed, which helps explain why the formal delivery response has been weak.

Zimbabwe has also introduced a policy mechanism that could strengthen domestic demand. Statutory Instrument 87 of 2025 requires local millers, stockfeed manufacturers and food processors to source at least 40% of their grain and oilseed requirements locally from April 2026, with the threshold scheduled to rise towards 100% by April 2028. The effectiveness of that measure will depend on the availability, quality and reliability of domestic supply, but it provides a potential demand floor for locally produced oilseeds.

The policy therefore needs to move from setting a production target towards building the complete commercial chain around it.

The first requirement is a structured contract farming programme modelled on the stronger elements of the soya system, with licensed buyers providing certified seed, fertiliser, agronomic support and a defined purchasing arrangement before planting. The second is investment support for crushing and processing equipment, which would reduce the capital burden on processors and improve utilisation of existing plants. The third is stronger domestic offtake for locally crushed sunflower oil, including procurement channels capable of creating predictable demand for domestic production.

The fourth requirement is a certified hybrid seed multiplication programme based on varieties tested under Zimbabwean agro ecological conditions. The Department of Research and Specialist Services identifies high seed yield and oil content as key sunflower breeding objectives and lists improved hybrid varieties capable of yields of up to 3 tonnes per hectare and oil content of up to 49% under suitable conditions.

The production potential therefore extends well beyond the current formal marketing performance. Zimbabwean research places sunflower's typical oil yield materially above soya's approximately 18%, although actual extraction varies according to variety and processing technology. The National Competitiveness Commission has cited sunflower oil yields of about 40% compared with 18% for soya, while other Zimbabwean value chain research places sunflower extraction at around 35% to 37%. The precise extraction rate depends on the seed and processing method, but the commercial advantage remains that sunflower can generate substantially more oil per tonne of seed than soya.

That makes the weakness in formal deliveries more consequential because the crop combines a high producer price, strong drought tolerance, substantial oil yield, an explicit Government target and an existing domestic processing industry. The missing connection is between the farmer who needs finance to plant, the buyer who needs predictable volumes and the processor that needs reliable feedstock.

The short term test is therefore not another increase in the sunflower price. It is whether formal deliveries can rise from the 5,181 tonne base as structured finance and offtake arrangements expand. If deliveries remain weak despite the highest producer price, the evidence will continue to point towards market architecture as the binding constraint.

The 160,000 hectare target should consequently be assessed through actual planting intentions rather than policy ambition alone. If farmers do not allocate land to sunflower at the required scale, the target will remain administrative rather than commercial; if planting expands while formal deliveries remain weak, the constraint will lie further down the chain in aggregation, collection, informal marketing or processing demand.

Crush utilisation provides the downstream test, while the cooking oil import bill provides the macroeconomic measure. A sustained increase in sunflower deliveries should improve utilisation of domestic crushing capacity and, over time, reduce the volume of imported crude and refined oil required to meet domestic consumption.

The opportunity is therefore larger than sunflower production itself because every additional tonne of locally produced and processed seed can potentially support a farmer, utilise domestic processing capacity, reduce imported oil requirements and retain more value within Zimbabwe. The crop sits at the intersection of agricultural incomes, manufacturing utilisation and the foreign currency cost of edible oil imports.

The policy has already chosen the crop. The commercial system now has to make that choice workable for the farmer, the processor and the buyer.

What Zimbabwe must do to transform its cooking oil position

Zimbabwe requires about 180 million litres of cooking oil a year, while domestic oilseed production and processing remain insufficient to meet that requirement consistently. Moving from 5,181 tonnes of formal sunflower deliveries towards the volumes required to materially reduce the cooking oil import gap therefore depends on coordinated interventions rather than another adjustment to the producer price.

A contracted input and offtake programme modelled on the stronger elements of Zimbabwe's soya system would provide the most direct starting point, with licensed buyers supplying certified hybrid seed, fertiliser and agronomic support while establishing a defined purchasing arrangement before planting. This would remove the pre financing barrier that prevents many smallholders from responding to the headline GMB price.

Processing investment would then need to accompany the production programme, with fiscal incentives reducing the cost of crushing equipment and improving utilisation of existing plants. Domestic procurement of locally produced sunflower oil could provide an additional demand floor, while stronger linkages between processors and farmers would give the industry greater confidence that investment in crushing capacity will be matched by reliable seed supply.

A certified hybrid seed multiplication programme would complete the production side, using varieties tested under Zimbabwean conditions and measuring both yield and oil content across the country's major sunflower producing areas. The Department of Research and Specialist Services already identifies these characteristics as key breeding objectives, providing an institutional basis on which a more productive commercial seed system can be built.

The economics therefore do not require another headline producer price. At US$670.46 a tonne, sunflower already commands the highest GMB price among the major crops in the 2025/26 structure, yet its deliveries fell 8% while soya at US$583.01 increased 58%. The evidence points towards the institutions surrounding the crop rather than the price attached to it.

In the short term, four measures will show whether the strategy is changing: sunflower deliveries need to move materially above the 5,181 tonne base, contracted input and offtake programmes need to expand, 2026/27 planting intentions need to be measured against the 160,000 hectare target, and cooking oil imports and crushing utilisation need to respond as domestic seed availability improves.

The strategic objective is larger than producing more sunflower. Zimbabwe is trying to reduce an edible oil import bill, increase agricultural incomes, utilise domestic processing capacity and retain more value from oilseed production within the economy, while sunflower has the agronomic and oil yield characteristics to contribute materially to those objectives.

The current outcome shows that those advantages have not yet been converted into a functioning commercial chain. Zimbabwe has already put the highest price on the table. The next task is to put the contract, finance and buyer behind the farmer.

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