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Minister Made

Elita Chikwati Harare Bureau
Preliminary results of the second crop assessment have shown that Zimbabwe is likely to harvest more than 1,6 million tonnes of maize this season, an official with the Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development has said.
The country requires 1,5 million tonnes of maize for human consumption and about 400 tonnes for stockfeeds manufacturing.
The official said the crop assessment was still under way but indications were pointing towards a bumper harvest.

“We are still to come up with the exact yield projection but we have observed that most provinces registered improvements in maize production and we may register an excess in maize.

“There have been great improvements in Midlands, Manicaland, Matabeleland South and Matabeleland North,” she said.
There has also been a notable increase in small grains, sugar beans, groundnuts and cotton production among other crops.

Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister Dr Joseph Made said the second crop assessment was still under way.
“What is important is that we are now coming to the end of the season and we should be focusing on the Grain Marketing Board in respect of the strategic grain reserve.

“Cabinet has directed that we speed up mobilisation of the financial resources so that whatever price we determine we pay farmers on time,” he said.
Dr Made said this year the government will also announce the floor price for small grains and they will fetch slightly a higher price than maize.

“I am expecting that Cabinet will agree on a price that encourages farmers to deliver their crops and be able to buy inputs in preparation for the winter and summer cropping seasons,” he said.

Dr Made expressed concern over the price of inputs especially fertilisers which he said we high.
He said the Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development together with the Ministry of Industry and Trade are working on addressing the issue of fertiliser prices.

“In the current crop, we were only able to give farmers under the government Smallholder Inputs Support Facility of 45 percent of the compound D fertilisers that we were supposed to give and 35 percent of the targeted top dressing fertilisers. Supposed we had given farmers 85 percent of the fertilisers what would have happened in terms of production,” he said.

Dr Made said the results from the 1,6 million households that were given inputs were motivating.
He said farmers should now be concentrating on harvesting and carrying out soil analysis.

Zimbabwe planted 1,655,366 hectares of maize during the 2013/14 summer cropping season. This is an increase from the 1,408,329 hectares planted last year.
A total of 2,2 million hectares were put under maize and small grains compared to the 1,8 million hectares planted last year.

The increase in production particularly maize has been attributed to the government Smallholder Inputs Support Facility which saw 1,6 million households benefiting.

The farmers received maize or small grain seed depending with the province, compound D fertilizers, top dressing fertilisers, urea and gypsum.
The high rainfall that was received in most parts of the country also contributed to the increase in production.