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has suffered a major knock from effects of illegal sanctions imposed on the country by the West as its multi-million dollar community radio project has collapsed after the United States withdrew sponsorship.
The money, mainly from the US, was supposed to be used to buy broadcasting equipment.
In an interview at the Harare Agricultural Show last week on Thursday, MSD head commercial services and marketing, Mr Maurice Sahanga, revealed that the department had intended to start the project to help farmers with seasonal weather information.
This, he said, would enable farmers to make informed planning based on the predicted weather outlook for the different seasons.
The withdrawal of funding has come as a major blow to resource-starved rural farmers, who have no access to radios and television transmission as well as newspapers.
“The USA is the major sponsor of the project but it immediately withdrew funds once it was Zimbabwe’s turn to get the equipment. It has helped countries such as Zambia, Uganda, Malawi and Mozambique to name just a few in the setting up of such stations.
“They have also done the programme in North Africa. The USA’s action is probably part of the West’s efforts to sabotage the land reform programme,” he said.
Mr Sahanga said the department’s intention was to have the radio stations in every part of the country to allow farmers to access weather information.
The project would start in the remotest areas where communication is difficult and where farmers did not have ready access to radios, televisions and even newspapers, said Mr Sahanga.
The radio project needs funding that runs into millions of dollars, as many stations have to be set up throughout the country.
With the current liquidity crisis the country is going through, the project has had to be shelved.
“The radios are only effective within radiuses of between 30 and 50km so they have to be many of them to cover the whole country,” said Mr Sahanga.
He added that if the project had taken off, MSD would have engaged experts to man the stations and always give farmers updates on weather so that they know appropriate activities to undertake, the kind of seasons to expect as well as the crop varieties to choose.
Farmers greatly need this information in the face of the current climate change problems that have made agricultural planning almost impossible.
MSD, he said, was at the moment using a local publication – The Farmer’s Guardian – to relay information to the farmers.
“We are also communicating with farmers unions such as the Zimbabwe Farmers Union, Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union and Commercial Farmers Union so that they include weather information in their magazines.
“The farmers will get the information once they read the publications. We know that the farmers unions will ensure that their members get the relevant information on weather,” said Mr Sahanga.
He said that MSD was trying to go down to district level so that instead of broadcasting weather information on radios and televisions that may not be possible in some areas, the farmers would get it from their local networks.
There are so many parts of Zimbabwe that still do not receive local radio and television signals and the community radio stations could have come in handy.
Mr Sahanga said the Meteorological Association of Southern Africa was currently meeting in Namibia to draft the regional seasonal forecast after which each of the 14 member countries would get its own forecast.
“That is the forecast that we will give to our farmers freely through radios, televisions and newspapers. The meeting will be running for two weeks so we will soon know what kind of season to expect in 2012,” explained Mr Sahanga.
Zimbabwe’s summer season is divided into two – the October to December half and the January to March half – so the MSD forecast would give information on the weather patterns to expect during those months.
Online Reporter