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Dr Made

Senior Agriculture Reporter
Government has commended farmers for producing a high quality maize crop despite fertiliser shortages as demand for Command Agriculture programmes escalates.

Fertiliser shortages have threatened the bulk of the dryland crop, but the irrigated crop has not been affected.

Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister, Dr Joseph Made yesterday said the quality of the overall maize crop countrywide was high, but could not reveal the expected yield.

He said teams from the ministry were on the ground carrying out crop assessment and would come up with a report that will be used to come up with projections.

“I must really commend farmers. They have battled with shortage of fertilisers as demand has been very high as it relates to cotton, tobacco and special maize programme under command farming. To achieve target yield you must have adequate fertiliser. Farmers have also battled with armyworm.

“We compliment farmers that they have done well and the quality of the crop is high although some farmers did not get adequate inputs. There are some farmers still struggling to get top dressing fertilisers,” he said.

Some sources within the ministry said there were 58 trucks of top dressing fertilisers at the South African border and these were going to alleviate the shortage of fertiliser.

Dr Made said there was high demand of fertiliser this season due to the increase in the area put under maize, tobacco, groundnuts, millet, cotton, cowpeas and sunflower among other crops.

“Command Agriculture has done well and we are already preparing for the winter cropping season. There is high demand for the programme and farmers have started enquiring about the winter programme.

“Farmers want command potatoes, livestock, wheat and soyabeans. We also want to boost irrigation activities. Some irrigation engineers are back from Spain where they had gone to enquire on the type of irrigation we require and chose centre pivots. Command Agriculture has done well with the irrigated crop,” he said.

He said Government had leant key lessons from assessment of crops in Mashonaland Central produced under Command Agriculture and it was now fine-tuning the programme to encourage participation.

Dr Made said the ministry was also on full alert of the fall armyworm pest that has wrecked havoc in most parts of the country.

Most farmers are optimistic of high yields and described the current season as favourable for a bumper harvest.

The farmers said they were certain of high yields despite the fertiliser shortage, heavy rains and fall armyworm attack.