adminSifelani Tsiko Agric, Environment & Innovations Editor
Regional climate experts drawn from all 16 SADC member states are expected to hold a virtual meeting this week to generate a forecast for the coming rain season.
Benjamin Kwenda, an agricultural meteorologist at the Meteorological Services Department told The Herald on Tuesday that the 26th Southern African Regional Climate Outlook Forum (SARCOF-26) would be held to disseminate the seasonal rainfall and temperature forecast for the 2022 – 2023 cropping season.
The SADC Climate Service Centre (CSC) will convene the virtual forum which is expected to run from August 24 to 26.
A forecast for the region will be announced by the end of the week.
Climate and weather experts will also review the previous rainfall season and forecast the nature of the upcoming season across the region.
“This regional meeting will be held virtually. It’s being hosted by the SADC CSC,” said Kwenda.
Last year, regional experts recommended that the seasonal forecast usually produced in August should be extended to cover April and May.
They argued that this was crucial in supporting the management of hydrographic basins and dams, which usually record the peak of the water flow after April, when the rainfall season ends.
Southern African climate experts forecast normal to above normal rainfall in the 2021 – 2022 cropping season over most parts of the SADC region.
Normal to above-normal rainfall were forecast over the bulk of SADC in the period from October to December (OND) 2021, with north-western part of Angola, bulk of Democratic Republic of Congo, western and southern Madagascar, northern Malawi, northern Mozambique, western fringes of Namibia and South Africa, south-western United Republic of Tanzania and north-eastern Zambia set to receive normal to below-normal rains.
The January to March (JFM) 2022 period was expected to have normal to above normal rainfall for most of the region except for, south-western fringes of Angola, western fringes of Namibia and South Africa.
However, the 2021 – 2022 rainfall season in Zimbabwe was largely marked by above-average rains in some regions and poor and erratic rainfall in others.
The late on-set and early off-set rainfall, rising input costs, excessive rainfall in some parts and drought in others had not bode well for the 2021 – 2022 cropping season in the country.
Rainfall received during the second last half of the season in January to April period came too late in the production season to save crops in most regions of the country.
Crop losses were significant in most south-eastern and south-western districts and households got poor harvests as many of the farmers experienced total crop failure.
The country’s maize output was projected to decline 43 percent in the 2021 – 2022 agricultural season due to poor distribution of rainfall.
Government estimated a maize output of 1 557 914 tonnes, 43 percent lower than 2 717 171 tonnes produced in the 2020 – 2021 season.
Small grains output was projected at 194 100 tonnes, 44 percent less than the 347 968 tonnes in the previous season.
Total cereal production projected is 1 752 014 tonnes against a national cereal requirement of 2 267 599 tonnes with 1 817 599 tonnes for human consumption and 450 000 tonnes for livestock.
After suffering from back-to-back droughts, Zimbabwe got a bumper harvest of maize and small grains in the 2020 -2021 cropping season following good rains that were received in the country.
This bolstered the country’s food security and helped the agricultural sector to grow by 34 percent.
Zimbabwe’s maize production increased from 907 628 tonnes produced in the 2019 – 2020 season to 2 717 171 tonnes in the 2020 – 2021 period – the highest yield in 20 years.
Online Reporter