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WITH distribution of inputs for the next summer season starting very soon, while many farmers are still harvesting the present summer crop some of which has just reached maturity stage, shows that the authorities are determined there will be no bottlenecks when the rains start in a few months time.
We have learned, the hard way, that it is absolutely critical to have the land prepared and the inputs on the farms in advance, so that when the ward or district officer of Agricultural Advisory and Rural Development Services tells farmers in a particular area to plant, they can immediately plant and get the best possible advantage from the rains that fall.
We are also continuing to make sure that maximum use is made of whatever rain does fall. Contour ridging is progressing well ahead of target, and that is even in a single year seeing the targets being continuously increased.
Conservation agricultural practices are now embedded in the farming communities, and mulches are regarded as important as any other input.
We know, from the last summer season, that even if total rainfall is fairly reasonable, long dry spells can easily arise, and the only way a dryland farmer can cope with these rainfall gaps is to ensure that what rain has fallen is held in the soil.
And for that ridging, conservation farming and mulches are vital.
AARDS is not looking at anything dramatic in increasing hectarages devoted to summer grain crops next season, a 10 percent boost just to ensure that farmers who have been wary about entering modern grain production, the sort where they can be backed by inputs, are able to join their successful neighbours.
Instead the main emphasis will be on improving yields, that is how many tonnes can each hectare produce.
This maximises the use of inputs and labour, even family labour, and boosts farmer profits. If every tonne of fertiliser, every kilogramme of seed, and every hour of farm labour can produce significantly more harvest then costs per tonne come down while prices remain firm in real terms.
That gap between price and cost is the farmer’s profit and the lower the cost per tonne the higher the profit.
Once again the targets for next summer season, as well as for the winter wheat season, are for grain surpluses and presumably for at least self-sufficiency in oil seeds.
Zimbabwe has now reached the stage where we have, for the first time in our history, attained surpluses for maize, wheat and traditional grains and with the sort of soya, sunflower and cotton harvests we now expect are likely to be self-sufficient or better in vegetable oils. There are now some interesting calculations the planners and authorities need to start thinking about, not so much this year but in the near future.
The probable record summer and winter grain harvest this year will allow the build up of food reserves, and that is important because we do not know when we will see the next bad drought.
Someone, or rather some group of competent technical experts, will need to fairly soon start working out whether we should have reserves of three months, which seems on the low side, or six months or nine months or even a year, although that is surely on the high side. We then need to look at where possible export markets can be found.
One problem with exports is that our neighbours have also been upgrading their agriculture, and that generally a good season for us is a good season for all. So markets might be too far away in general to cover the high transport costs a small country at the bottom of Africa and far from the sea would be facing.
There will be some potential markets but at some stage the reserves will be at their optimum, the home market settled, and whatever obvious regional markets exist are filled.
This is when we need some strategic planning to ensure farmers can continue to grow their incomes. In a pure free market we would see prices crash as surpluses grow, and but forcing farmers into poverty is not a practical or good idea.
What is required is to then expand the range of crops we grow, and expand the area devoted to crops that provide raw materials for manufacturing and obvious exports, such as cotton and tobacco, although others are possible.
In other words we might be moving towards a time where we freeze our levels of basic food crops and start allocating more land for other crops.
One obvious example is rice, where almost everything on the shelves is imported and just packaged in Zimbabwe.
Japan is now helping to see how this grain, the main one we do not grow much ourselves, can be grown in Zimbabwe with the right varieties and the right cross breeding between the indigenous African wild rices and the high productivity Asian rices.
The crop obviously needs water but there are ways of combining rainfall, supplementary irrigation and pure irrigation where we have the right soil types, the right land gradients and the like to combine with the right varieties.
In some parts of the country the high grade lucernes and other rich grasses are already a significant cash crop for farmers who have suitable markets among the cattle producers, who are also being encouraged to move into commercialising their herds.
Looking at the price gaps between the highest grades of beef and the lowest commercial grades, and the need to boost our dairy production, it appears that these pure stockfeed crops have a future.
Horticulture has fallen behind since its heyday, and can be boosted. We are not just looking at traditional vegetables and the like, but at expanding the range and the varieties, and at building up the orchards for fruit.
As AARDS is now stressing, it is not so much looking at hectarages, but at looking at how many dollars profit each hectare can generate that is becoming increasingly important, and for smallholder farmers this is obviously the ultimate calculation since for a middle class family on a fairly small farm the goal must be to maximise income, that is profit.
Online Reporter