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ACUTE food shortages are set to savage Manicaland after the second crop and livestock assessment — a barometer used to gauge harvest projections — which ended last week concluded that the province will harvest way below what it requires to feed its growing population.
The delicate food crisis is a result of poor rains.
Manicaland put 191 000 hectares under maize, 43 000ha under sorghum and 37 000 under pearl millet — but the bulk of these crops wilted before reaching maturity in a mid-season drought.
The second crop and livestock assessment for the 2014/15 season started at the beginning of April and ended last Friday with indications on the ground depicting a dire situation in which the province, often revered as hub of food production, faces massive food shortages.
The major thrust of the assessment is to estimate yields as well as categorise areas of deficit or surplus in cereal production and indications on the ground in Manicaland were gloomy as food harvests were verified as “way below that of the 2013/14 season”.
In 2014, the province harvested 176 294 tonnes of maize, a 27 percent increase from the 2013 season whose production stood at 138 454t.
When asked about the findings, Agritex head Mr Godfrey Mamhare on Tuesday was not comfortable disclosing the exact projections, but was bold enough to say all was not well in the province.
“We completed the assessment and have submitted our findings to the head office. We cannot explicitly give you the picture before a national announcement by the minister.
“In a nutshell, I can say that all is not well in the province. The yields for the 2015 season are way below those of last season. The harvests are very poor by any standards,” said Mr Mamhare.
He could not say the quantity of food aid required to save the situation from degenerating into a mortal threat.
A survey by The Manica Post in Manicaland revealed that the province was facing a tremendous challenge in meeting food needs of its rapidly growing population as the bulk of its crop suffered severe moisture stress and the quality of the remnant crop was inferior.
Manicaland’s fortunes plummeted due to limited and unreliable rainfall which resulted in more than half of the 2015 maize and small grain crops to die before reaching maturing following a dry spell in larger parts of the province.
The first round crop assessment, done in February, also established that the staple maize crop in Buhera, Chipinge, Chimanimani, Mutare and parts of Nyanga, Makoni and Mutasa districts was a complete failure due as a result of the mid-season drought.
Most parts of Manicaland were characterised by scarce and unreliable rainfall that was concentrated during a short rainy season with the remaining period tending to be absolutely dry.
Rains were late and irregular in large parts and at some point excessive to the extent of submerging the crop, thereby affecting production because of the sporadic dry spell at various periods during this current rainy season.
At most, these areas receive annual rainfall of 500m and high temperatures during the rainy season cause much of this rainfall to be lost through evaporation.
Though the rains sporadically resumed mid-February, the early planted crop had tussled while not fully grown, a situation that affected cobbing and grain filling, in case of maize.
“There is no variation in the findings of the first and second crop assessments. The current rains have not rejuvenated the crop at all. The beneficiaries of these late rains are beans and wheat farmers. But the time the rains resumed, the bulk of the crop had succumbed to moisture stress,” said Mr Mamhare.
The exercise is being conducted by a team made up of officers from the Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development (Agritex, Livestock Production Department (LPD) and the Meteorological Services Department).
The assessment relies upon data collected by Agritex officers based at ward, district, provincial and national level and the data provides basis for estimating planted area and expected yields as well as an insight into the current livestock situation.
Online Reporter