Seed houses urged to meet over small grain imports

Addressing delegates attending the Rattray Arnold Research Field Day in Shamva on Wednesday, Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister Joseph Made said the seed imports will be limited to a particular timeframe that allowed the industry space to come up with a local solution.
Regional delegates from Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Swaziland and Mozambique attended the occasion that also drew farmers from all the Mashonaland, Midlands and Manicaland provinces.

The organiser of the event, Seed Co, has expanded operations into the above countries.
“It is time the country adopts crop diversification and accommodates small grains on a very serious note as a mitigating measure against the effects of climate change.
“Climate change is for real so I would like to see all our technical departments working with seed houses to find an appropriate response to the related problems,” said Minister Made.

He lamented the fact that Government and companies such as Seed Co had invested a lot in assisting farmers with both agronomic and appropriate crop seeds were still averaging less than a tonne per hectare.
“Following the rolling out of the land reform programme, Government’s major objective now is to ensure that our agricultural sector increases its productivity to achieve food sufficiency for the country,” said Minister Made.

Government, he added, was committed to ensuring that farmers got the right kind of support in line with the effort to rebuild the national food reserves, generate exportable commodities and consolidate the land reform programme and reduce poverty through economic development.
Minister Made also took the opportunity to unveil                  Seed Co’s two new seed varieties SC727 and SC637 that are reputed for scoring 18 tonnes per hectare and 17,5 tonnes per hectare respectively.

He later conducted a draw under the Murigadzose Promotion in which the first national winner won a tractor with the second winning a grinding mill and a generator while the third went away with a grinding mill.
Winners from the various provinces won generators with their extension officers getting motor cycles.

In an interview on the sidelines of the field day, Minister Made said Government was worried by the poor preparations for this year’s winter wheat season citing lack of funding as the biggest challenge.
“Ministry of Finance has acknowledged that it owes farmers money over unpaid grain deliveries and that it also owes seed houses and fertiliser companies money in excess of $68m from inputs acquired for last season,” he said.

This, he said, had dampened the spirit of the farmers to actively participate in wheat production while service and inputs providers are also waiting to move after getting what they are owed.
He also challenged the power utility Zesa to stop disconnecting farmers adding that the agricultural sector would soon come up with a position paper on their feelings towards what should be done to address the issue of unpaid bills and the relentless power cuts.

Seed Co Zimbabwe managing director Mr Denias Zaranyika also took the opportunity to advise farmers to choose seed varieties that do well in their different agro- ecological regions.

Mr Zaranyika said his company attached great importance to research programmes and invested heavily in research and development to produce products that yielded the best results every year.
“We have products suitable for the various agro-ecological regions of the country hence the slogan: Seed Co Border to Border.

“However, due to the excellent performance of our products across large parts of Africa, we have indeed broken down the barriers of borders to become borderless,” he said.