adminIn an interview, the ZFU executive director Mr Paul Zakariya said they have invited international organisations to participate in the programme by imparting the skills to local farmers.
“In conjunction with Citizens Network for Foreign Affairs (CNFA) and International Crop Research for Semi Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), we are holding agro-dealer field days meant to train farmers on making the most out of the few resources available.
“The programme has been implemented in four provinces which are Matabeleland North, Matebeleland South, Midlands and Masvingo,” he said.
Mr Zakariya said they had established demonstration plots whereby they are giving stakeholders and farmers a chance to be under one roof discussing challenges and solutions affecting their industry.
“We were hosting visitors from Washington who were also helping farmers by giving them tips on better ways of practising agriculture.
‘This programme is meant to empower farmers, suppliers and manufactures of seed, chemicals and fertilisers,” he said.
He said there was need for farmers to also go technical and computerised for them to be competitive globally.
“There are highly advanced ways of agriculture that other countries have adopted which we think can be useful locally also,” he said.
On the same issue, the ZFU Matabeleland North provincial manager Mr Brian Kuhuni said the project encouraged agro-dealers to have first hand experiences of productivity of their products for better service delivery through demonstration plots that were placed in the provinces.
“We invited seed supplying companies like Seedco, Pioneer seeds, Agric seeds and Windmill to participate in the programme.
“The whole idea is to afford the farmers to ask questions to suppliers as well as teach farmers basic business principles needed when dealing with input suppliers and banks,” he said.
He said some farmers have been purchasing fake fertilisers and seeds, which has been negatively impacting on hectarages hence the need for farmer education.
“Players in this sector are being given a chance to ask questions from different agricultural stakeholders while it’s a chance also for agro dealers to participate thereby getting more information on the needs of their markets.
“The whole concept of this programme is to get the most out of the few resources at our disposal in order to attain high productivity levels,” Mr Kuhuni said.
He said they were training growers innovative ways of crop production so as to contribute to the economic recovery process.
“Farmers will be trained conservation agriculture, micro-dosing and mechanised form of agriculture by the CNFA (who are funding the project through USAID funds) and ICRISAT organisations (who are providing technical education to farmers).
“These organisations will be transferring researched information to the farmers and our duty as ZFU is to mobilise the farmers,” he said.
He said they had recently toured Lupane and they managed to get a gathering of 200 farmers, which was a sign that farmers were willing to learn.
“We are also working with irrigation schemes like Zinapi in Lupane as we are trying to show farmers that they can make commerce out of the seeds they are getting and failing to fully utilise,” Mr Kuhuni said.
According to him, the intention of the programme was to teach farmers conservative methods of agriculture, as farmers were cash strapped.
He challenged farmers to go for traditional ways of farming that were both conservative and healthy to the soil.
“We are hoping to increase hectarage in these areas after this programme as we discovered that lack of knowledge was adversely affecting the performance of the agricultural sector,” he said.
Online Reporter