The Sunday News
Nqobizitha Dhlamini
THE Department of Agriculture and Rural Extension Services has expressed concern over lack of demonstration materials that includes farming inputs, that has proven to be an impediment to the quality of produce yielded by farmers in the country.
In an interview with Sunday Business, Matabeleland North chief agricultural research and technical services extension officer, Mr Dumisani Nyoni, blamed lack of knowledge on how to manage crops for the uncompetitive produce that farmers were producing. “The yield that is produced by farmers in the country is not per standard of neighbouring countries resulting in the inflow of quality products from other countries yet the very same crops are being grown locally.
A lot of factors like lack of knowledge on how to go about some farming activities contributes greatly to the poor quality of yield produced in the country. As a result, the production costs tend to be much higher than the profits realised, therefore posing as an obstacle to economic independence of the farmers and elevation to profitable full time commercialisation for some farmers,” said Mr Nyoni.
Mr Nyoni said it was their (Agritex) duty to demonstrate proper farming practices to farmers who were at the moment producing maize, potatoes and other crops that were way below standard but the extension services efforts were being stifled by lack of materials to embark on improvement projects effectively.
“We do not have enough demonstration materials to go about teaching and showing the farmers proper agricultural practices. As it is, we are supposed to be showing farmers the proper use of herbicides but we do not have enough equipment to use in these demo plots,” he said.
Mr Nyoni said another factor that was proving to be a problem in their department was the issue of mobility.
“The issue of mobility is a problem to the smooth flow of our work as we face challenges in reaching out to the farmers in their different areas of practice. Our resources are limited hence posing as an obstacle to the work that we have to do,” he said.
Mr Nyoni also expressed his concern and disappointment on the soya bean contract farming project as the farmers still face various challenges in undertaking the project.
“United Refineries is only catering for the farmers that are to produce at least one hectare and the rest are left for other stakeholders to also offer assistance to them but we are disappointed for we haven’t seen much effort from them.
“Some farmers do not have the working capital to undergo this project,” he said.
United Refineries recently set aside $2 million for soya bean contract farming to improve the supply of raw materials to boost its capacity utilisation in Matabeleland.
Speaking on the US$2 million that was recently allocated to them by the Government in the 2015 budget, Mr Nyoni said they would channel the funds towards trying to curb these problems they were facing.
