Online Reporter
Elita Chikwati
GOVERNMENT’S commitment to agro-ecological tailoring of crops is bearing fruit with traditional grain production surging in the arid regions in a development that boosts food security and revitalises local farming practices.
Sorghum production has increased by 432 percent from 82 063 tonnes last season to 436 784 tonnes in the 2024/25 season, pearl millet increased by 797 percent from 20 977 tonnes during the previous season to 188 261 tonnes this year.
Finger millet production also registered an increase of 136 percent from 4 070 tonnes during the 2023/24 season to 9 605 tonnes this year.
The Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development revealed in the Second Crop and Livestock Assessment report that production of traditional grains had increased mostly in communal areas due to agricultural input distribution based on agro-ecological tailoring of crops.
The Presidential Input Programme Government’s inputs programmes take into account the agro-ecological regions and soil type of the beneficiaries so they can be given appropriate crop varieties.
Those in high yielding areas are given maize seed while those in drier parts of the country receive traditional grains seed.
According to the Second Crop and Livestock Assessment report, the communal sector dominated sorghum production. However, the average yields are still low compared to the large-scale farming, A2 and old resettlement sectors.
“Pearl millet production increased by 797 percent in the 2024/25 season from 20 977 tonnes in the previous season to 188 261 tonnes this season. Yield increased from 0.11tonnes per hectare in 2023/2024 season to 0.77t /ha this season.
“There is a continued general increase in pearl millet production since the advent of the land reform programme,” read the report.
Most farmers had not been willing to grow traditional grains as the crops were viewed as varieties for the vulnerable.
Traditional crops such as sorghum, millet are, however, turning out to be popular, as people are becoming aware of their high nutritional value and improvement in technology, which has seen the introduction of machinery for processing them.
Climate change has also seen Government and non-governmental organisations promoting production of crops that can perform well under low rainfall conditions, as part of efforts to ensure food self-sufficiency and reduce the number of people relying on humanitarian assistance.
A number of farmers have since realised that they can make huge profits from growing and processing traditional grains, with some selling value added products at lucrative markets.
Zimbabwe has five ecological regions.
Region 1 in the Eastern Highlands experiences high rainfall, region 2A, 2B and region 3 are the bulk of Mashonaland provinces while the rest of the country like Masvingo, Matabeleland South, Matabeleland North and parts of Mashonaland West along the Zambezi Valley are in region 4 and 5.
Regions 4 and 5 are dry and receive around 400mm of rainfall per annum and sometimes below than that.
Farmers in dry regions have been trained on production of traditional grains through demonstration plots and farmer field schools so they can compare yields from maize and sorghum plots and make informed decisions on their own.
This encouraged farmers to dedicate part of their plots to traditional rains.
The introduction of mechanisation has also improved the uptake of traditional grains.
Initially, farmers had complained that processing traditional grains was not easy and this forced some to shift to maize production.
The introduction of threshers and other labour saving technologies started to increase the area under traditional grains.
