SI 87 Grain Levy Turns Glen Somerset’s Dry Fields Into A 50-Hectare Lifeline
Eight months ago, the land at Glen Somerset in Murewa District lay idle – sun-baked, cracked, and at the mercy of rains that rarely arrived on time. Today, 50 hectares of those same fields hum with pumps and glint with newly laid pipes, ready to push out at least 250 metric tonnes of cereal a season. Enough grain to feed far more than the 20 farmers who farm there.
This turnaround is not an accident of weather. It is the first visible dividend of a policy decision taken in Harare and carried, tonne by tonne, from Zimbabwe’s borders back into its soils: Statutory Instrument 87 of 2025 – the Grain Import Levy.
How SI 87 Turned Imports Into Irrigation
Standing at the edge of the new irrigation layout on 26 June 2026, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development, Prof Dr Obert Jiri, did not underplay the moment. He was speaking during the Agricultural Marketing Authority’s inaugural Agricultural Marketing Fund (AMF) Impact Assessment and Media Tour at Glen Somerset Irrigation Scheme.
“From October 2025, when the Statutory Instrument was promulgated, and now in June, this scheme is already functional,” Prof Jiri said. “Food security around the scheme is now guaranteed. This is why we want local production to be emphasised, so we are able to produce our own food and not depend on external importation of food.”
Statutory Instrument 87 of 2025 introduced a structured Grain Import Levy, but not as a simple tax. It was designed as a financing engine for climate-proofed agriculture, channelling value from imported grain back into local fields.
Under SI 87, the Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) was mandated to collect the levy and ring-fence the proceeds. Those funds feed into the Agricultural Marketing Fund, earmarked for three things: smallholder irrigation infrastructure, farmer payments, and productivity programmes.
FFA Explainer:
The Grain Import Levy under SI 87 charges a fee on imported grain cargoes. Instead of disappearing into general revenue, this money is set aside in a dedicated Agricultural Marketing Fund. From there, it is invested directly into irrigation schemes, working capital for farmers, and yield-boosting interventions, turning dependence on imports into a bridge towards self-sufficiency.
US$3.2 Million, ZIG29 Million – And 17 Schemes In Phase One
For years, smallholder irrigation in Zimbabwe has been held back by one stubborn fact: cost. Sinking boreholes, laying pipes, installing pumps, fencing fields, and building night storage tanks all demand heavy upfront capital.
At Glen Somerset, AMA Chief Executive Officer, Alice Mapfiza, spelt out how the Grain Import Levy is beginning to change that equation.
“The total funds we have put towards different schemes in the first phase amount to US$3.2 million and ZIG29 million, and we will continue to support a total of 17 irrigation schemes. This is just the first phase,” Mapfiza said.
Phase 1 is due for completion by 31 July 2026, with two further phases already in the pipeline. If those phases proceed as planned, the Agricultural Marketing Fund will rank among the most consequential agricultural financing mechanisms in Zimbabwe’s recent history, standing alongside programmes like Pfumvudza/Intwasa in its impact on smallholder resilience.
Levy revenues have already helped put approximately 850 hectares under irrigation nationwide. Against a backdrop of rising El Niño probabilities for the coming season, every irrigated hectare is a hedge against hunger.
Glen Somerset: From Policy To Pipes In Eight Months
What makes Glen Somerset powerful as a proof point is the speed of its transformation.
When SI 87 came into effect in October 2025, the scheme existed mostly on paper. By June 2026, the site showed what early, targeted investment can do. Engineer Kudakwashe Makwena led the AMF delegation through a network of infrastructure that only months before had been scrubland.
Multiple pump installations sat ready at the water source. Pipes snaked across the fields to newly prepared plots. Kilometres of fencing – 95 percent complete – enclosed the 50-hectare block, a critical defence against livestock damage and theft.
“Very soon farmers will be able to start irrigating,” Mapfiza confirmed, as local growers and visiting journalists walked the perimeter.
At full capacity, Glen Somerset’s system is projected to produce at least 250 metric tonnes of cereal per season. For the 20 direct beneficiaries, that means reliable household grain, surplus for sale, and the confidence to think beyond subsistence.
FFA Explainer:
A 50-hectare scheme producing 250 tonnes per season averages about 5 tonnes per hectare – a realistic target for irrigated cereals under good management. Even if yields fall below that in a tough season, irrigation sharply reduces the risk of total crop failure compared to rain-fed plots, especially under El Niño conditions.
Early Warning, Early Action – Not Emergency Appeals
The message Prof Jiri carried to Murewa was as much about timing as it was about technology. With meteorological models signalling high El Niño probabilities, government has framed SI 87 as a practical example of “early warning, early action”.
Instead of waiting for harvest failures and then turning to imports and food aid, SI 87 uses the reality of imports today to build irrigation that will reduce the volume needed tomorrow. Each cargo that pays the levy helps finance a hectare somewhere in Zimbabwe that will one day replace it.
“It’s massive progress, considering that irrigation development is capital-intensive,” Prof Jiri said. “Food security around the scheme is now guaranteed.”
That guarantee radiates beyond the 20 plot holders. Glen Somerset sits within a wider community that buys grain, hires labour, and depends on local markets. When the scheme is in full production, millers, traders, and transporters in Murewa will also feel the effect.
Vision 2030, NDS1 And The Politics Of Local Grain
SI 87’s design reflects a strategic choice embedded in Vision 2030 and the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1): food security must rest more on local production, less on external supply chains.
Zimbabwe has, in recent years, imported grain to cover gaps created by drought and input constraints. Those imports have stabilised markets but drained foreign currency. SI 87 redirects a portion of that outflow into permanent assets – pumps, pipes, power connections, and secured land.
The focus on smallholder irrigation also aligns with the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and global goals around zero hunger and climate resilience under the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Irrigation, when managed well, allows rural communities to grow more food on less land, all year round, without clearing fragile ecosystems.
For women and youth, schemes like Glen Somerset offer a platform to move from seasonal piecework into structured agribusiness. Reliable water opens space for horticulture, seed production, and contract farming – activities that can deliver higher margins than bulk grain alone.
Youth agripreneurs can plug in as pump technicians, aggregators, transporters, or digital service providers, turning a 50-hectare block into a small rural economy.
Challenges Ahead: From Commissioning To Commercial Discipline
Glen Somerset’s neat lines and new infrastructure tell a hopeful story. Yet Zimbabwe’s irrigation history is littered with schemes that started well, then faltered when pumps broke, leadership fractured, or markets turned against farmers.
For SI 87-funded projects to avoid that fate, several questions still demand clear answers:
- How will schemes be governed – as companies, cooperatives, or joint ventures – and how will conflicts be resolved?
- Who will pay for long-term maintenance and eventual equipment replacement once the initial capital is spent?
- What crops will farmers grow, and which buyers are ready to sign offtake agreements at viable prices?
- How will women and youth be guaranteed meaningful shares in land, water, and decision-making?
The Vision 2030 Accelerator Model, already converting irrigation schemes into companies nationwide, offers one framework. At Glen Somerset, turning a 50-hectare “project” into a durable business will require strong local leadership and close support from AMA, agritex officers, and financial partners.
FFA Explainer:
Transforming an irrigation scheme into a viable agribusiness means treating water as a production input, not a free good. That involves clear water allocation rules, transparent accounting, scheduled maintenance, and planning around markets. Without these, even well-built schemes can slide into underuse or collapse.
From Murewa To The Maize Belt
For farmers elsewhere watching Glen Somerset’s rise from fallow land to irrigated blocks, the scheme carries a simple lesson: policy on paper can, with the right structures, become water in the furrow and grain in the granary.
As hashtags like #foodsecurity, #RuralTransformation, #EarlyWarningEarlyAction and #Vision2030 flew around social media after the tour, the fields themselves told a quieter story. Where there was once bare, dusty ground, there is now a grid of plots ready to be planted, fenced against livestock, wired for power, and connected to a funding instrument that begins with grain wagons at Beitbridge, Forbes, and Chirundu.
If SI 87 continues to channel import levies into such practical outcomes – and if phases two and three of the Agricultural Marketing Fund deepen and widen that impact – Glen Somerset will be remembered not just as an isolated success, but as the place where Zimbabwe proved that a policy lever, pulled at the right time, can turn dry fields into a durable line of defence against hunger.
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[…] practical terms, this will require tight coordination between the Ministry, Agritex officers, irrigation schemes, and local authorities. And it will demand discipline: following planting […]