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Elita Chikwati Agriculture Reporter
Farmers have started preparations for the 2015 summer cropping season with most of them expecting to boost production due to the recent announcement of a decrease in fertiliser prices and the arrival of equipment under the Zimbabwe-Brazil More Food for Africa Programme. Recently, the fertiliser industry announced a 20 percent price decrease for all fertilisers while equipment that includes tractors, fertiliser spreaders and irrigation kits worth $32 million would be distributed to selected groups of farmers.

This is expected to go a long way in enhancing agricultural productivity and ensuring food security at household level as adopted in the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio–Economic Transformation (Zim-Asset). Experts on the other hand have called for productivity per unit area by cultivating land that can be managed in terms of resources in order to increase yields.

Most communal farmers said they had finished winter ploughing and were waiting to plant with the first rains, while others said they had done all maintenance of the farm machinery and equipment in preparation for the season. Zvimba farmer, Mrs Emily Masimba of Chivhere Village, said she carried out land preparations early so that it would not take her long to plant.

“We always plant with the early rains. It is too early for us to predict the rainfall season but we prepare in advance. Whether we will have heavy rains or light rains, we have discovered that it pays to plant early,” she said. The farmers urged the Grain Marketing Board to speed up payments so that they could buy seed and fertilisers once.

“Long back, we used to finance our farming projects using proceeds from enterprises, but now we are looking at other ways of funding. “We now rely on piggery, cattle and poultry projects to fund farming as the GMB has not been paying us on time,” she said. Karoi farmer, Mrs Susan Chenge, said Government should assist GMB to pay farmers early so they continue growing maize.

“We want to be rewarded for our efforts. Most people are now turning to tobacco because it is viable. The same thing should happen to maize,”she said. Pioneer Hi-Bred agronomist, Mr Gift Zimunya, urged farmers to resort to conservation farming and plant short season varieties. “Farmers will never go wrong with short season varieties especially those in drier areas. Farmers should also buy seed early and plant with the first rains as this has an effect on yields,” he said.