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Dr Made

Tawanda Mangoma in CHIREDZI
Government has secured knapsack sprayers that will be distributed to smallholder farmers in an attempt to fight the risk which might be caused by the fall armyworm this season. This development comes after chiefs told President Mugabe when he attended their annual meeting in Bulawayo last week that their subjects almost lost their crop to the pest last season. The traditional leaders also said they wanted the District Development Fund to be revamped so that it could continue to offer tillage services to communal farmers. Others also requested inputs under the Presidential Well-Wishers Free Inputs Scheme for their Zunde RaMambo plots.

Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister Dr Joseph Made said on Tuesday that his ministry was working round the clock to have the chiefs’ requests addressed before the farming season started. He said the first victory in the fight against fall armyworm was the help received from the Food and Agriculture Organisation, which would see many smallholder farmers receiving knapsack sprays to fight the pest.

“The chiefs raised the question of the fall armyworm as to what we were doing as Government in order to fight this dangerous pest. We will continue to have the National Spraying Team on standby, but we must also capacitate the farmers. Poorly capacitated farmers risk losing much of their crop to fall armyworm, especially in the event that the national spraying team delays in responding,” said Dr Made.

Dr Made said extension workers should be out on the fields teaching farmers on how to scout the pest.

“Our primary focus now is capacitating the farmer on fighting this pest. We need to remain alert, the chiefs were specific on fall armyworm. We need to train our farmers on when to spray, how to spray, how to scout so that it doesn’t develop resistance. We want extension officers to be with the farmers. They must spend 75 percent of their time on the field helping farmers. We can’t give the farmer an extra task of imagining what good agric-practices are. They have a huge task of planting, weeding, harvesting and then delivering the grain to GMB,” he said.

Dr Made said they were busy looking at ways at which services which were offered by DDF could be restored.

“So, smallholder farmers will get knapsack sprayers, but not all of them, which Government and FAO acquired for pest and disease management. We will make sure that the chiefs get inputs for their Zunde RaMambo plots, while we are waiting for DDF to be back on the ground to offer its much needed tillage services to the small scale farmers,” he said.