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Sharon Shayanewako
WITH overall preparations for the 2022/23 cropping season entering the home stretch, attention has shifted to training farmers on proper agronomic practices that help boost productivity and ultimately food security.
Acting deputy director Training and Information for Agritex, Mrs Nester Gumbo yesterday revealed that training of farmers on the application of good agronomic practices was essential in boosting food security.
“Considering that distribution of inputs under the Pfumvudza/Intwasa programme is underway, our current focus as the department of Agritex is on training farmers to apply good agronomic practices in terms of planting. And since the summer cropping season is fast approaching, we have intensified the trainings by including direct farmer training, farmer field schools, Zunde RaMambo and media blitz.
“Farmers need to be trained in line with the country’s vision of ensuring food security and nutrition variability. It is mandatory for farmers to receive knowledge and other agronomic skills, which will capacitate them to score bumper harvests,” explained Mrs Gumbo.
The Pfumvudza/Intwasa concept, which is mostly applied to maize, traditional grains and cotton is being used to accelerate the commercialisation of smallholder agriculture.
In addition, the Government’s move to capacitating extension officers will nurture the effective delivery of extension services to farmers
“Our extension workers were capacitated by the Government. They were given motorbikes together with a monthly allocation of fuel, which will enable them to deliver the much needed technical information timeously while improving their monitoring of farmers. They were also given tablets for e-extension, as well as strengthening their capacities through online in-service training. All this is meant to enable them to deliver full services, which will capacitate farmers to achieve high economic yields,” she explained.
Zimbabwe Commercial Farmer’s Union (ZCFU) president, Dr Shadreck Makombe said training of farmers was an important facet, which contributed to high yields.
“Training of farmers is going to make life easier for farmers, as they will be given a lot of knowledge and skills on how best they can do planting and when to apply fertilisers. This will indeed ensure that the nation is food secure,” commented Dr Makombe.
Meanwhile, Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development chief director responsible for Agriculture Advisory Services Professor Obert Jiri recently reiterated that inputs would be distributed according to agro-ecological regions.
“Each extension officer has a map on the agro-ecological region of his/her ward and results of soil tests too. This will define how we will attend to the soil. Where the pH is low, we apply lime,” he said.
The Presidential Input Programme is targeting 3, 5 million farmers in communal, A1, small-scale commercial farming, old resettlement and peri-urban farming sectors for the production of cereals, oilseeds and legumes up from last season’s 2, 7 million.
The programme is supporting five Pfumvudza plots each of 39 by 16m per household with an agro-ecological region specific crop input packages for the crops whose growing conditions match the requirements of the areas in which the farmers are situated geographically.
The package will also include water retention enhancers, herbicides for three plots and a fall armyworm control component.
The Government has released $20 billion towards the roll out of the Pfumvudza/Intwasa programme.
The strategic objective of the 2022/23 summer programme is to sustainably increase crop production and productivity to meet and surpass the national requirements for both human consumption and industrial use through the implementation of the key tenets of the Agriculture Recovery Plan.
Online Reporter