dyton mupawaenda
Thupeyo Muleya–Beitbridge Bureau
A new orange plantation has seen more than 200 000 orange trees planted on 800ha at the integrated Zhovhe Farm some 70km west of Beitbridge town with the first harvest expected next year.
Toppick Investments, a local company which owns the farm, is targeting to have 277 000 orange trees by the end of this year.
The company has set up a highly integrated farm using Zhovhe Dam, one of the country’s 10 biggest dams, and has since constructed a 9km by 500mm pipeline to boost the new citrus farming and horticulture with irrigation water delivered by microjets.
Toppick Investment’s chief executive Mr Danisa Moyo said they imported most of the propagating material in batches from South Africa.
“We have planted 230 000 trees on 800 hectares.
“The area covered so far is divided into five phases,” he said.
“These include, phase 1, with 180 hectares planted in April 2021, phase 2 covering 220 hectares planted in November 2021, phase 3 covering 60 hectares and the trees were planted in February 2022. The fourth and fifth phases covering 280 hectares and 60 hectares were planted in August last year”.
Toppick planted lemons trees on 80 hectares.
He said they were able to create 380 jobs for permanent and casual workers on the citrus farm and the employees are mostly women and the youth from villages adjacent to the farm.
The first harvest next year comes from the 50 000 trees which were planted in the early phases. The varieties of oranges are those that do well under Beitbridge’s climatic conditions and these can be harvested over a period of 60 years.
“So far, we have planted orange trees of the Benny Valencia, Turkey, and Midnight varieties on 700 hectares. In terms of lemons we have the eureka specie,” said Mr Moyo. More citrus varieties will be in the near future.
Additionally, the company is also planting wheat, maize, soya beans, tomatoes, and groundnuts in other sections of the farm. Toppick plan more citrus planting for both the local and export markets.
“We are looking at setting up a solar power plant to augment power supplies, since we have also been affected by long hours of load shedding which affect irrigation,” he said.
The organisation also intends to construct a modern sorting shed for grading the citrus products before taking them to the market.
At the moment, they upgraded their electricity transformer from 315kV to 1000kV.
Since starting operations around 2015, the company has acquired 17 irrigation pivots to enhance crop production throughout the year.
Citrus production has been growing gradually in Beitbridge district with the small holder farmers introducing it at their communal irrigation project some 100km south west of the border town in 2011.
The 189 communal farmers at the irrigation-driven citrus project are now producing an average of 700 tonnes of oranges per season to supply the Schweppes Holdings-run Beitbridge Juice Plant (BBJ).
It is understood that the fruits are being sold at the local juice factory at between US$0,15 and US$0,19 per kg.
Additionally, three schools in Ward 8, including Shashe primary and secondary and Mopani primary are part of the project.
The schools have an average enrolment of 300 pupils.
Citrus production was a colonial preserve for commercial farmers only, but things have started changing with more small players stepping in.
The government through a development player, Cesvi stepped in to help with technical knowledge and capacity building for the plot holders who are now into serious citrus production and horticulture.
Online Reporter