via Poor harvest projected despite good rains 03/03/2014 by Moses Chibaya NewZimbabwe
DESPITE normal to above rainfalls that the country received during the 2013-2014 farming season, Zimbabwe is likely to experience another poor harvest as government dismally failed to support small holder farmers that it intended to support.
Giving oral evidence before the thematic committee on Gender and Development the secretary for Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Ringson Chitsiko said government could not adequately support small holder farmers.
“We intended to supply 81,000 metric tonnes of compound D but only 47 percent of that was availed to the farmers. This came to 37,755 metric tonnes. We wanted to distribute 80,000 tonnes of top dressing but only 43 percent of that was made available,” Chitsiko told the committee.
Experts say the unavailability or high cost of agricultural inputs such as seeds and fertilizers apart from adverse weather, decrease in acreage, poor agricultural practices and the type of crops being grown, is contributing to hunger in Zimbabwe.
Although gains have been registered in crops such as tobacco, Zimbabwe remains a net-food importer. Production in the 2012-13 season is projected to have fallen to 789,000 tonnes, and the government has spent $60 million importing grain from Zambia.
Chitsiko said government was disbursing a 10 kg bag of maize seed or a 5kg bag of sorghum seed or a five kg millet seed, a 50 kg bag of basal fertilizer, a 50 kg bag of ammonium nitrate.
He said other households who did not benefit from the above package got a 10 kg bag of cow peas, a two kg bag of finger millet and a ten kg bag of sugar beans.
COMMENTS
Yes it is expected to have poor harvest because of ignorance in farming everything needs education.Once you have established the quality education in agriculture one can set up the standards of best production.Cow manure is used to produce quality tobacco how that is madness.Government to give people with expertise in farming than giving ignorant people 298 hectres of land to people who do not know what agriculture is and only grows one acre of poor quality tomatoes. .Agriculture means business and one can not do big business without the knowledge of running a business.It is like taking a grade grade seven student to teach maths and English to form four students.Zero zero zero tolerance.
Pathetic in so many different ways
You’re waiting for somebody to give you a small bag of seed and some fertilizer and you call yourself a farmer? On the other hand having promised to provide these things the government fails to deliver year after year. How is this possible?
The farmers were never prepared in the first place. All they will give us is excuse after excuse for their failures. Get ready for an excuse like ‘there was too much rain’. Things fall apart…from here on it looks like we will always be a nation of beggars under this leadership. This is what happens when you have thieves and gangsters in charge. Murimi wanhasi is part of this filth.