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Thupeyo Muleya, Beitbridge Bureau
MATABELELAND South Province has set a target yield of 9 000 tonnes of wheat planted under the Command Agriculture scheme, an official has said.

The chairperson of the provincial coordinating committee on Command Agriculture, Mr Masauso Mawocha, said so far they have planted on 1801.7 hectares against a target of 1852.7ha.

He said the programme was a great success considering that the province was a semi-arid region, where crop husbandry largely depended on irrigation farming.

Mr Mawocha said at the beginning of the programme, they had set a target of 2 000 hectares tillage land from 54 institutions including those run by communal farmers and Arda.

“The winter wheat programme has been a great success this time considering that we have surpassed the tillage for the 2014/2015 and 2015/2016 seasons,” he said.

“In the last two seasons we planted on 1 200 and 600 hectares respectively and currently we are sitting on 97.2 percent of our set target (1801.7 hectares)”.

Mr Mawocha said farmers had received implements including seed, chemicals and fertilizers. He said the wheat programme was only being implemented at irrigation schemes and institutions. He added that they had started training farmers on pests and disease control.

“Our officers are busy on the ground training the farmers on pests and disease control methods. We are looking forward to a higher yield and would want to ensure that the crop is not destroyed,”said Mr Mawocha.

He said the uptake of the wheat programme was tremendous especially that people had gained confidence in Command Agriculture.

“You will note that we surpassed our targeted yield by 29 percent on maize put under Command Agriculture, and this has seen more people participating in the wheat programme,” he said.

Mr Mawocha commended the level of production by all those who registered under Command Agriculture in the province. He said they had so far harvested 10 634 tonnes of maize against an initial projection of 8243.75 tonnes from 1648.75 hectares.

It is estimated that the country needs 1.8 million metric tonnes of grain annually for both human and livestock consumption.

So far 6 100 hectares have been registered for wheat under Command Agriculture with a target yield of 220 000 tonnes countrywide.