Icrisat to promote groundnuts seed production

16 Jun, 2019 - 00:06 0 Views
Icrisat to promote groundnuts seed production

The Sunday News

Dumisani Nsingo, Senior Farming Reporter

INTERNATIONAL Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (Icrisat) Zimbabwe is working on promoting the breeding of groundnuts seed by small-scale farmers as part of its efforts to improve the production of the crop in the country.

Icrisat Zimbabwe’s Dr Kizito Mazvimavi said there was a need for the country to produce its own groundnuts seed varieties to enable it to tap into the lucrative foreign markets.

“As an organisation we have always been interested in effective water utilisation in dry areas and as such we are pushing for groundnuts seed production through small irrigation schemes. We hope some of the schemes can go into groundnut seed production with small-scale seed producers distributing the seeds locally.

“At the moment there is no seed company that is producing groundnuts in this country, they import mostly from South Africa. We are trying to say come with the challenges and we will provide the solution if there are no good varieties we will produce good varieties. Farmers need different varieties for different areas,” he said.

A key challenge in groundnuts production has remained lack of proper identification, resulting in too much cross-breeding. 

Farmers plant different varieties on the same piece of land, resulting in massive cross-pollination.

Dr Mazvimavi said groundnuts were fast losing value as one of the country’s cash crops and largely attributed this to lack of extension support.

Farmers lack sufficient knowledge on expected yield by variety, types of varieties, market demand and scientific names of varieties.

He said there was also a need to educate farmers on aflatoxins problem in groundnut.

“In this country those who are in groundnuts producing areas can make a lot of money . . . but in Europe you can’t sell or consume groundnuts or peanuts at a certain level of aflatoxin. We have a laboratory here and we can estimate all that and educate the farmers.

“Groundnuts are one of the crops we know has a potentially good market just like cotton in the past but cotton is a fairly new crop, groundnuts are one of our traditional crops but we never really took care of it for some time and we can’t sell it to reputable markets,” said Dr Mazvimavi.

The informal market has become a major player in the groundnuts value chain because it presents a ready market with farmers paid cash. 

The market has also become a reliable source of groundnuts for small and medium-scale peanut butter processors and farmers who want to buy groundnuts for seed.

This development has presented a paradigm shift in the role of traders who are no longer just selling groundnuts but also advising farmers on what variety to plant as per consumer demand. 

With at least 90 percent of households in Zimbabwe consuming groundnuts, they need knowledge on the effects of aflatoxins. Traders have some bit of knowledge on aflatoxins.

Aflatoxins have become the subject of concern in agriculture, as well as in animal and human health on a global scale. 

A very small amount of aflatoxin in feed (10-20 parts per billion) can produce fatal liver cancer in young animals. Aflatoxin contamination is a serious quality problem in groundnuts.

@DNsingo 

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