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Masvingo Bureau

GOVERNMENT, in partnership with the sugar manufacturing giant, Tongaat Hulett, has produced 1 186 tonnes of irrigated winter maize.

The maize produced under the initiative is aimed to enhance food security in the province, which had been facing recurrent food shortages owing to droughts.

Tongaat partnered Government to grow winter maize under the Smart Agriculture Programme to cushion the province in the event of a drought in the current farming season.

Addressing guests during a tour at Tongaat cane estates in Chiredzi on Wednesday, Minister of State for Masvingo Provincial Affairs, Ezra Chadzamira, said the programme deserved to be expanded to cover other crops.

The minister said there was a need for farmers with irrigation facilities to scale up production in line with the Government’s Vision 2030.

“As a province we must heed calls from President Mnangagwa of enhancing production. We should also try to adapt to climate change, which continues to affect us on a daily basis,” he said.

“As such, we are calling those with irrigation facilities to scale up their production to boost the country’s food stocks. We are also expecting the programme to expand in the near future by introducing other crops like wheat and soya beans.”

The winter maize project was introduced by former Governor, Josiah Hungwe, after the 1992 drought. Minister Chadzamira said several agricultural research stations in the Lowveld were supposed to up their game and identify other crops, which can be grown in the arid area to boost Masvingo’s food security through irrigation.

He said Masvingo was home to many underutilized dams that could be exploited to produce food and cash crops under irrigation in the Lowveld.

Minister Chadzamira said recurrent food shortages should be a thing of the past in the province, which has the highest dam density in Zimbabwe. Meanwhile, power cuts are being blamed for projected poor winter wheat and maize harvests this year. Masvingo Provincial Agritex Officer, Mr Aaron Muchazivepi, said intermittent power cuts by the country’s power utility, Zesa, has affected crop production in the lowveld especially the winter maize.

“Irrigation farming requires electricity to pump water from the dams into the canals and this was hindered by power shortages resulting to crop failure due to moisture stresses,” he said.