The Sunday News
Judith Phiri, Sunday News Reporter
THE Department of Agricultural, Technical and Extension Services (Agritex) officers nationwide will undergo seven-day training to be equipped with data collection and analysis to conduct crop and livestock assessment.
In an interview, Matabeleland South Agritex provincial agronomist Mr Innocent Nyathi said the extension officers’ training will be conducted in each province in preparation of undertaking the crop and livestock assessment.
“Trainings are to be conducted nationwide for seven days and after that there will be data collection to try and understand the food situation in the provinces by conducting crop and livestock assessment. For the past years we have been doing the assessment the paper way but because of technology advancement we are now going paperless by using the Open Data Kit (ODK) software which we have tried to simplify so that we can gather information regarding crops and livestock,” said Mr Nyathi.
He added that the essence of the assessment was to gather as much information as possible in terms of area planted, so that they are able to inform policy makers of the targeted area vis-a-vis what has been actually planted.
Mr Nyathi also noted that this will also help Agritex to be able to triangulate on the production if it matches the food requirement in a province and the nation at large.
“If deficiencies in the system are then obtained then it means we fast interject in terms of importing food to bridge the gap. We are training our extension staff so that we are able to capture data as soon as possible so that we are able to inform policy makers ultimately. This is a very short process that needs to be done within the next two weeks.”
Mr Nyathi also highlighted that the first-round of assessment seeks to establish area planted and the second-round of assessment will look at yield/production in the context of area planted that will then inform on the actual food on the table.
“The first round that we are doing, we are only trying to understand the area that has been planted of the various crops such as maize, sorghum, pearl millet, groundnuts, cow peas, among other crops that are grown in the provinces. We want to establish against our targets how much area have we planted, whether we underperformed against our target or we have surpassed our target,” he added.
Mr Nyathi also noted that the second-round of crop and livestock assessment is when they will look at what the area planted would produce in terms of food and see whether each province will reach its expectations.
Meanwhile, the National Development Strategy 1 said increase in agriculture production and productivity, especially by smallholder farmers will ensure food and nutrition security, enhanced income, increased opportunities for value addition and the development of agro-business value chains. In the 2021 National Budget Statement the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement got ZWL$ 46,259 billion.
