Chronicle Editor
Judith Phiri, Business Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Services (Zakis) has urged farmers to utilise agriculture centres of excellence (ACE) to acquire all the necessary farming information and solutions as they work towards improving their productivity.
Zakis is part of a larger EU-funded Zimbabwe Agricultural Growth Programme (ZAGP) that was launched in the country in June 2019. The 40 million Euro initiative seeks to boost the beef, dairy, pig, goat and poultry production, complemented by Zakis which is mandated to work with the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Resettlement to co-ordinate market-oriented education and extension services across the five value chains.
Speaking during the second ACE virtual field day last week, Zakis head of project, Mr Waddilove Sansole said the two ACEs and four District Agricultural Centres of Excellence (DACEs) were set up in a bid to improve livelihoods as well as strengthen the food and nutrition security of the country.
“These are meant to enable farmers and value chain actors to improve their lives and contribute to agricultural growth. They demonstrate best practice agriculture and respond to the farmers needs and request. There is access to over 100 000 farmers through all the centres,” said Mr Sansole.
He said of late the ACEs were working on developing solutions to the fall army worm through farmers needs assessment on how best they could biologically control the pest. He said farmers had to utilise these to improve their productivity, produce great yields and take farming to be a profitable and lucrative business.
In a presentation on sorghum production from Chegutu, agricultural extension officer Mr Benny Magura said farmers should take note of the different varieties.
“Here at the DACE we planted the macia variety which is a short season variety and requires 100 to 113 days to mature. Our plant population is over 350 000 per hectare and as we all know sorghum is key to food security. It can be used for sadza and also brewing traditional beer,” said Mr Magura.
He said the advantage of sorghum in areas such as Chegutu an agro-ecological zone, region 2b which receives minimum rainfall, was that the crop was drought tolerant and could grow in areas with low rainfall. Mr Magura encouraged farmers to take their soils for testing before planting in order to determine their soil nutrient status and to know which type of fertiliser to use.
He said that inter-cropping sorghum with beans was highly recommended as the beans improve soil fertility through fixation of atmospheric nitrogen which had benefits for the sorghum crop.
With the sorghum crop mostly affected by birds, Mr Magura said farmers should opt for the NS 5511 variety which was bird resistant and apply ammonium nitrate to improve the yield.
“Due to climate change, our seasons are shifting. Farmers need to consider their rainfall pattern when selecting a seed variety to grow. Other factors to consider when selecting a variety include resistance to pests such as birds, aphids and caterpillars,” he said.
Speaking on sorghum stalks for stockfeed, Henderson Research Station in Gokwe research technician Mr Caspian Moyo said sorghum could also be used as feed for livestock such as cattle.
“After harvesting the stalks usually remain in the fields. So we can treat or process these stalks in order to feed our livestock. Most farmers usually discard the stalks which can be kept for future feeding of our animals,” said Mr Moyo.
He said one way of preparing the sorghum stalks as feed was called urea stover treatment meant to soften the stalks for use for the animals during the dry season.
Icrisat research associate, Mr Farai Dube encouraged farmers to adopt different tillage techniques as a way of water harvesting.
“There are various technologies farmers can use such as reeping, basins, tight ridges, infiltration pits within the graded contours among others. These can assist them in such times of climate change for those in semi-arid regions,” said Mr Dube.
In terms of the fall army worm, he said they were experimenting on low cost methods that farmers could afford.
He said researches showed that inter-cropping maize with cowpeas or lablab and mucuna, sorghum with cowpeas and putting a border of banner grass around the crops worked as a push and pull mechanisation.
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