• Zimbabwe’s 2025/26 soyabean harvest reached a historic post-land-reform high of 119,067 metric tonnes from 56,562 hectares, effectively supplying 54% of the national requirement
• The record yield driven by Pfumvudza conservation methods and intensive smallholder participation is poised to displace USD 15 to 20 million in annual crude oil import expenditures
• While raw material supply has hit an investable scale, local crushing capacity at industrial players remains a critical bottleneck, highlighting an immediate, high-yield opportunity for targeted agro-processing investment

Harare- Zimbabwe's 2025/26 soyabean harvest reached 119,067 metric tonnes from 56,562 hectares harvested, according to the Second Round Crop, Livestock and Fisheries Assessment Report presented to Cabinet on 9 June 2026 by Agriculture Minister Dr. Anxious Masuka.

The figure represents the highest single-season soyabean output in Zimbabwe's confirmed production record and eclipses the previous series high of 93,086 metric tonnes recorded in 2022/23, itself the last production season before the El Niño drought collapsed output to 42,000 metric tonnes in 2023/24. The 2025/26 result is a structural step-change that has moved Zimbabwe's soyabean output to a new level above anything the sector has previously delivered.

The 2025/26 soyabean harvest of 119,067 metric tonnes from 56,562 hectares is the highest confirmed output in the post-land-reform era, only surpassed by the 2000 and 2001 output. The 2000 season delivered 135,417 metric tonnes and the 2001 season delivered 140,793 metric tonnes reflecting the output capacity of Zimbabwe's large-scale commercial farming sector before the fast-track land reform programme of 2002 fundamentally restructured the agricultural base.

Within the post-land-reform production era from 2002 onward, 119,067 metric tonnes stands as the highest seasonal output ever recorded, exceeding the previous post-2002 series high of 112,326 metric tonnes in 2007 and the more recent AMA-confirmed peak of 93,086 metric tonnes in 2022/23. The significance of the 2025/26 figure is therefore not that it represents an all-time record but that smallholder and emerging commercial farmers, operating under the Pfumvudza conservation agriculture methodology and with improved seed and input access, have now collectively exceeded what the post-2002 production base has ever delivered, and are within measurable distance of the output levels that Zimbabwe's large-scale commercial sector achieved at its peak.

The national requirement of approximately 220,000 to 240,000 tonnes annually means the record post-2002 harvest still covers approximately 54% of domestic demand, but the trajectory from 29,772 metric tonnes at the 2018/19 trough to 119,067 metric tonnes in 2025/26 describes a sector that has quadrupled its output in seven seasons.

. The sector has more than doubled output since 2020/21's 71,290 tonnes, more than tripled since 2015/16's starting point, and survived two El Niño drought interruptions, in 2018/19 at 34,827 tonnes and in 2023/24 at 42,000 tonnes, without losing its structural growth trajectory.

The 119,067 tonne 2025/26 harvest against the national requirement of approximately 220,000 to 240,000 tonnes annually means Zimbabwe's domestic production now supplies approximately 54% of its own soyabean requirement, up from approximately 19% in 2015/16.

The remaining 46% continues to be imported, primarily as crude soyabean oil whose monthly import bill has averaged USD 18 to 22 million through 2025 and into 2026. Every 10,000 tonne increase in domestic soyabean production, processed through Zimbabwe's existing crushing infrastructure, displaces approximately USD 5 to 7 million in annual crude oil import expenditure. The 2025/26 record production, if fully converted to domestic crushing output, could reduce Zimbabwe's annual soyabean oil import bill by approximately USD 15 to 20 million relative to a scenario of continued import dependence.

The structural constraint that the record harvest simultaneously confirms is crushing capacity. Zimbabwe's domestic oil crushing industry, centred on National Foods, Olivine, and smaller private processors, has not expanded at the same pace as soyabean production. The result is that a portion of Zimbabwe's soyabean crop is sold as raw beans rather than processed into oil and meal, exporting the value-added processing margin to the importing country rather than retaining it domestically.

The CZI Oilseed Indaba's long-standing recommendation for crushing capacity expansion, combined with the 2025/26 record harvest confirming that the raw material supply is now available at commercially investable scale, makes the case for targeted investment in domestic oil processing infrastructure more compelling than at any previous point in the sector's development.

The 2026/27 season planning must contend with the 80% Super El Niño probability flagged in Cabinet's forward-looking briefing. Soyabean is among the most drought-sensitive of Zimbabwe's major crops, with its critical moisture requirement concentrated in the pod-fill period between January and March.

The Pfumvudza programme's moisture conservation design provides partial protection against below-normal rainfall, but a severe El Niño event of the scale that the Meteorological Services Department has assessed at 80% probability would likely compress 2026/27 soyabean output below 2025/26's record, potentially returning the sector toward the 75,000 to 94,000 tonne range that characterised 2024/25 and the pre-Cabinet May 2026 estimate for the current season.

The irrigation expansion programme across Mashonaland Central, which accounts for 47.5% of national soyabean output, is therefore the investment variable that determines whether the 2025/26 record represents a sustainable production floor or a weather-dependent peak.

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