Online Reporter
Meteorologists from across Sadc met last week and released their forecast for the October 2025 to March 2026 rainy season.
They met in Lusaka, Zambia on Wednesday at the 31st Southern African Regional Climate Outlook Forum and said most countries in the region are likely to receive normal to above-normal rainfall between next month and December except western Namibia, Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius and Seychelles.
Between January and March next year, the bulk of the region will receive normal to above-normal rainfall, with normal to below normal rains expected in parts of Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania. Most of Madagascar, Mauritius and Seychelles are set to receive normal to above-normal rainfall over the period, but the Comoros will receive normal to below-normal rainfall.
This is a regional prognosis, so we expect the Meteorological Services Department of Zimbabwe (MSD) to release the country-specific projection this week.
However, the Government on Tuesday last week predicted a season largely similar to the 2024-2025 one, which gave us plenty rains and was exceedingly successful. A cautionary note — effective rains are likely to fall late and the onset erratic as well, but everything will fall into place as the season progresses.
The country realised a bountiful harvest this year, setting tobacco and cereal records of 354 million kg and 3 million tonnes, respectively.
Preparations for the season have started already. Authorities have announced a national harvest target of 3,2 million tonnes of cereals — 2,5 million tonnes of maize and 687 000 tonnes of small grains and 360 million kg of tobacco.
We are optimistic that the national rainfall forecast will be positive as the regional experts and the Government said last week.
So, we urge the industry to move on with the usual guarded confidence given the likelihood of the delayed and erratic beginning of the season on one hand and good rains on the other.
Farmers must mobilise all their inputs on time.
Working closely with agricultural research officers as usual, they must schedule their plantings most carefully, spreading them across the first half of the season, not taking the risk of planting everything with the first rains or waiting for the later part of the season. By spacing their plantings, they would be spreading their risk across.
Farmers who have irrigation capacity are encouraged to be ready for the possibility of dry spells. They utilise the rains as much as they can, supplementing them with irrigation systems as needed.
Spreading their risk also means putting some portions of their farms under long season crop varieties, particularly maize; and putting others under short season varieties. If the former fails, the latter will do well; and if the former does well, the latter will do the same as well.
All this emphasises the fundamental importance of the Pfumvudza/Intwasa climate-proofed scheme. Most of the success the country has achieved since 2020, especially in cereal and oil seed production has been due to the programme. The Government must intensify it so that even if the rains are not abundant, household food security would be generally assured. When the rains are abundant, we reap big as we did this year.
