The ManicaPost
Samuel Kadungure Senior Reporter
THE Agriculture Ministry has completed the second round of crop and livestock assessment which provides basis for estimating the planted area, expected yields and insight into the current livestock situation in Manicaland.
The assessment builds on results from the first round like planted area, crop stages and condition, rainfall quality and crop input availability and the extent they influence crop yields and production this season.
It was conducted by a team made up of officers from the ministry, Agritex, Livestock Production and Development and Meteorological Services Department, among others.
The assessment relied upon data collected by Agritex and LPD officers at ward level and the provincial findings will be forwarded to the ministry for consolidation into the national report.
The assessment came at a time when the province is expecting a bumper harvest following good rains accompanied by the success story of the Command Agriculture.
Agritex head for Manicaland, Mrs Phillipa Rwambiwa, said the assessment winded off last week and the team was compiling findings from wards and districts across the province.
“The programme ended last Friday, and we are in the process of compiling a report detailing our findings. The aim is to discover those areas where there will be food deficit and bumper harvest,” said Mrs Rwambiwa.
Her counterpart from LPD, Mr Joshua Zvoutete, said preliminary finding showed that the provincial herd was in good condition following an improvement in pastures, water availability and dipping.
Mr Zvoutete also urged farmers to start preparing hay.
“It is at this juncture that farmers should start preparing their hay by cutting grass when it is still green. This is the time when grass has high protein content unlike in April when all the grass protein will have been returned into the soil,” said Mr Zvoutete.
While the livestock condition has drastically improved in drier parts of the province, an acute food crisis is obtaining in Buhera among those areas that fall under Natural Regions four and five.
Most communal farmers are unlikely to harvest enough food to feed their families — let alone surplus to sell.
A survey by The Manica Post in Manicaland revealed that drier parts of the province were facing a tremendous challenge in meeting food needs of its rapidly growing population as the bulk of its crop suffered severe leaching which made the quality of the crop inferior.
Though the heavens have been generous with the rains, massively improving grazing pastures and water bodies, the fight against hunger and poverty is by no means victorious as very few communal farmers can get a reasonable harvest this season.
The quality of the bulky of the crop is poor due to a combination of leaching of the little available nutrients in the overworked, tired and infertile soils, erratic availability and application of fertilisers, and lack of crop rotation, among other poor agronomic practices bordering on agricultural illiteracy.
The incessant rains triggered severe leaching of nutrients from the soil, and high poverty levels mean families cannot afford even a bag of fertiliser to nourish the yellowing crops.
In Buhera, Marange, Nzvimbe, Low Veld and Nyanga North, among other areas that fall under geological Region Five which planted short season maize varieties, sorghum, groundnuts, round nuts, pearl millet, short-cycle beans, rapoko, pumpkins, sweet potato among others, the projected harvest, regardless of the fairly distributed rains, will be severely compromised as the crops are yellowing due to nutrients deficiency.
The fall armyworm is also savaging the poor crop.
At most, these areas receive annual rainfall of 500m and high temperatures during the rainy season cause much of this rainfall to be lost through evaporation. Besides being water deficient, dry lands of Manicaland which include the entirety of Buhera, Mutare districts, the larger parts of Chipinge, Chimanimani, Nyanga, Mutasa and Makoni districts — are synonymous with exceptionally high summer day temperatures, low humidity, high run off and soil erosion.
The areas with good maize include Honde Valley, Cashel Valley, upper parts of Chipinge which falls under region one and two as well as areas like Chiendambuya, Mayo, Nyazura and Rusape in Makoni district.
The season had a high demand for fertiliser as a result of leaching, and this was against what the farmers had prepared.
Farmers needed at least three applications of top dressing fertilisers, but farmers had no such fertilisers due to a combination of scarcity and high prices.
