Online Reporter
FARMERS in Mashonaland East have been urged to preserve part of their current harvest for household and national grain reserves as the province prepares for a potentially difficult 2026/27 summer cropping season.
Mashonaland East Provincial Affairs and Devolution Minister Advocate Itayi Ndudzo said farmers should guard against exhausting their stocks after coming out of a relatively good agricultural season, warning that the rainfall outlook for the coming season required careful planning and preparation.
He said the province needed to strengthen both household grain reserves and the national Strategic Grain Reserve (SGR) to cushion communities against possible production shortfalls.
“What we are benefiting from now is the wealth we harvested previously. Therefore, take this message to farmers in your districts and tell them: ‘Protect what we harvested,’ because the season ahead will not be easy, and it may be difficult to achieve the same level of production we had in the previous season,” Minister Ndudzo said.
He was speaking during a provincial early strategic planning meeting for the 2026/27 summer agricultural season organised by the Government in partnership with the Strategic Grain Reserve 200ha Plus Club.
He said the province had a responsibility to preserve the gains from the previous season while ensuring that farmers remained productive despite anticipated rainfall challenges.
“This is good news because we are coming out of a fairly good season. We had a normal to above-normal season in terms of yields,” he said.
“The first and most important issue for everyone to appreciate is the Enhanced Strategic Grain Reserve. We must be strategic in the way we look after what we already have.”
Advocate Ndudzo also expressed concern over Mashonaland East’s contribution to the strategic grain reserve, saying current collections were below expectations for one of the country’s major agricultural provinces.
He rated the province’s performance at two out of 10, saying authorities were targeting a fourfold increase in grain collections over the next two weeks.
The provincial leadership is working with the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) to mobilise grain from districts, with GMB trucks expected to assist in collecting available grain and delivering it to strategic reserves.
He urged farmers to contribute according to their capacity, saying larger producers should make larger contributions where they have grain available.
The call comes as Government implements six strategic measures for drought mitigation and agricultural resilience, including enhanced strategic grain reserves, accelerated climate-smart production and irrigation, financing, livestock drought mitigation, imports, and improved coordination and early-warning systems.
Minister Ndudzo said farmers should also intensify climate-smart production methods, particularly Pfumvudza/Intwasa and irrigation, to maximise production where rainfall is limited.
“Under accelerated climate-smart production, if rainfall is limited, we must intensify and optimise the land and available water resources so that we can still achieve good yields,” he said.
He said Pfumvudza/Intwasa would be particularly important in helping smallholder farmers conserve moisture and maintain production.
“This year, Pfumvudza is not simply an option; it is a survival necessity,” Minister Ndudzo said.
Meanwhile, SGR 200ha+ Club Zimbabwe chairman Tichaona Mapfoche said farmers needed to translate the Government’s drought-mitigation policies into practical action at farm level.
He urged farmers to prepare early, conserve water, strengthen irrigation, use appropriate crops and technologies, keep records and follow agro-ecological recommendations.
“Climate variability means we can no longer farm entirely according to historical rainfall patterns. We must farm according to the conditions we face,” Mapfoche said.
He said protecting grain stocks while improving production efficiency would be critical to maintaining food security and sustaining livelihoods during the coming agricultural season.
