The Sunday News
Vincent Gono in Maphisa, Kezi
THE bulk of Matabeleland South Province from whose bosom Matobo District dutifully belongs is known to be arid. And from the general lance of one with a theoretical knowledge of the province, nothing good in terms of agriculture, particularly crop farming can come out of the province’s seven districts and using the scale of probability, that of having drought is always higher than that of having a good harvest.
The province is famed for edible mopane worms or amacimbi and is in the natural ecological region five where cattle ranching seem to be the only suitable agricultural activity that sustains families apart from small-scale mining that not everyone is into.
Although most parts of the province are characterised by rich clay to loom red soils, the biggest undoing is that rainfall rarely visits the areas making the province one of the country’s perennial basket cases — one that hardly produces enough for subsistence.
But the 2016/17 farming season may be a page turner particularly for Matobo District as its fortunes in as far as food self-sufficiency are looking a little bright. Although the district is still to completely free itself from the last agricultural season’s El Nino-induced drought grip, hopes are high that there will be no repeat of that as the current agricultural season whose tone can be located in the Government’s Command Agriculture, which was launched by Vice-President Emmerson Mngangagwa last year is promising something for the villagers’ granaries and the country’s silos which have not known grain for some time.
Matobo District Administrator Mr Robert Mzezewa confirmed during a visit by the Sunday News to the district that the entire district was currently faced with a grim drought but that was likely to change as the Government’s Command Agriculture was showing great signs of paying dividends.
He said the entire district had 507,5 hectares of land under Command Agriculture adding that the response to calls to join the programme was impressive from out-growers but the problem that most villagers faced was of lack of irrigation since no one envisaged an above average rainfall pattern.
As a result, he said, a number of individual farmers who were willing to join Command Agriculture were left out on the basis that they have no irrigation to supplement the rains that were expected to be low.
Matobo District is generally dry with a few pockets which are suitable for crop farming while the bulk of the land intended for agriculture in other districts in the province has been put under irrigation. The major drawback is that irrigation water hardly sustains the crops to maturity as most of the rivers in the province’s districts are seasonal while in some cases the irrigation schemes have long become dysfunctional and are plagued by a coterie of problems that require extensive capital injection.
What it therefore means is that those that are far from the water bodies are seldom productive on the land when it comes to growing maize which is the country’s staple crop. But with the untiring encouragement of the Government most of the communities have been growing drought resistant small grain crops such as millet and sorghum but they somehow find growing maize irresistible.
However, a bumper harvest is expected this season in Maphisa which has no doubt grown out of the enclave it used to be from the time it was established in the 1970s to become the most strategic centre from where Matobo District’s whole life revolves, owing mainly to the Government’s Land Reform Programme that saw large white-owned commercial farms being parcelled out to landless Zimbabweans.
That the province is arid is quickly forgotten when one is introduced to the intensive crop farming at Maphisa’s Arda-Trek Estate formerly Arda Estate before the Government, in 2015 after realising the gradual decline of Arda fortunes in the district, agreed to an investment partnership with Trek Petroleum in the farming venture.
So intense and serious is the farming at the wholly mechanised estate that one can easily be forgiven for thinking that they are no longer in Matabeleland South Province where part of the areas are known to be rocky, sun baked and not suitable for crop farming.
The petroleum company took over the operations of the estate under the public private partnership and invested substantially in 12 new mobile centre pivot irrigation systems, a good number of HP tractors, and getting seed maize contracts with various companies.
This year owing to the deliberate food security initiatives that were put in place by the Government when it introduced the special maize import substitution programme, known as Command Agriculture Programme across the country, Arda-Trek Estate has an amazing 480 hectares of maize crop that is almost mature. It is at the hard-dough stage.
And according to the estate manager Mr Alec Chinyai they are looking at a yield of not less than 10 tonnes per hectare which is double the projected yield of five tonnes the Government has set for farmers under Command Agriculture.
“We planted 480 hectares of maize under the Government’s Command Agriculture Programme. We are very happy that the crop is quite impressive and we are anticipating a yield of more than 10 tonnes per hectare.
“The rains helped us so much because we have not been irrigating the crop from the 9th of December up until now. The rains therefore saved us electricity. As you can see the crop is almost mature now and we do not see ourselves irrigating it because the ground is still soaked. What we are doing now is spraying the crop just to make sure it is protected from pest attack otherwise we are sure of getting our targeted yield,” said Mr Chinyai.
He added that they intend to put 750 hectares of land under wheat come winter under the Command Agriculture Programme, something that he said was going to make the importation of flour a thing of the past.
Mr Mzezewa said although he was not sure of the amount of grain his district consumes, he was all sure that the crop at Arda-Trek Estate could be enough to feed the entire district.
He added that they were working to ensure that more irrigation schemes were established while those that were not functional were resuscitated to ensure food self-sufficiency in the district in the wake of low rainfall patterns.
Some farmers in Matobo, however, received the inputs late when the rains had already started and due to the incessant rains they could not plant and are now stuck with the inputs.
The Government introduced the Command Agriculture programme with the intention of intensively growing the country’s staple maize crop and move away from the idea of being perennial importers of grain which was obviously weighing heavily on the State coffers.
The good rains that were above average in most parts of the country were an added blessing that answered the people’s prayers and unlocked the agricultural potential of areas least expected to have magnanimous amounts of produce.
Agricultural experts have already expressed high expectations of a bumper harvest in the country amid reports in recent weeks that the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) has a splitting headache over the issue of its silos that are said to require urgent repairs at a cost $50 million.
Farmers are also expressing fears that the Government will not be able to pay them in time for the grain deliveries as most parts of the country are expecting a bumper harvest under the Command Agriculture Programme.
@gonovincent
