The Sunday News
Judith Phiri, Sunday News Reporter
MORE than 8 354 tonnes were harvested under the winter wheat crop in the Matabeleland region this season, an increase from the 5 500 hectares collected the previous season.
The 2019/20 season saw Matabeleland delivering 8 354 tonnes to the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) with Matabeleland South contributing 5 905,8 tonnes while Matabeleland North accounted for 2 447,8 tonnes.
Department of Agricultural, Technical and Extension Services (Agritex) provincial officials said wheat deliveries slightly increased this year.
Matabeleland South provincial agronomist Mr Innocent Nyathi said the province managed to achieve its set target per hectare.
“In the month of October, we managed to deliver 5 905,8 tonnes of wheat, our production stands at 7 099 tonnes and the outstanding was 795 tonnes. We managed to achieve our set benchmark of five tonnes per hectare,” said Mr Nyathi.
Agricultural and Rural Development Authority (Arda)’s Antelope-Trek and Ingwizi estates were the biggest contributors delivering 2 699,7 and 3 055 cropping tonnes respectively while their outgrowers’ schemes also contributed above 85 tonnes each with the remaining coming from communal irrigation schemes.
“We were anticipating to harvest more but due to various challenges such as the delay of inputs, farmers could not meet the certain stipulated window period at which they were supposed to plant, so we were not able to meet the total hectarage we were anticipating,” said Mr Nyathi.
He said the delay in accessing combine harvesters also affected farmers with some of their production almost being affected by the rains. One of the province’s biggest irrigation schemes, Silalatshani in Insiza District even failed to make deliveries with an outstanding 50 tonnes after having planted only 30,2 hectares, while it has a capacity of 437 hectares.
Matabeleland North provincial principal agronomist Mr Davison Masendeke said the province managed to deliver 2 447,8 tonnes.
Mary Ellen Farm being one of the biggest contributors weighed in with 1 616,9 and Arda’s Jotsholo contributing 1 265.
The province last year realised about 2 500 tonnes of wheat from the harvest.
Mr Masendeke said the wheat harvest could have been more but unavailability of adequate water sources was a constraint.
“Because of recurrent droughts we have had for the past three years, water levels at most water sources have been depleting, the wheat crop natural needs a lot of water that explains why most farmers didn’t commit and harvested less last month because most dams were dry,” he said.
Mr Masendeke said with most irrigation schemes having no water the yield was not very spectacular as they were ranging from about three tonnes up to seven tonnes.
Farmers who got around seven tonnes had planted on time and those who received the input very late could not meet their set targets. On average the province received about 5,8 tonnes per hectare.
Mr Masendeke added: “In between there was also an issue of frost, the crop would be affected by freezing temperatures between boot and flowering which caused leaf discolouration, spikes to be trapped in boot, floret sterility, and damage to the lower stems. Thus, also then affecting the yield.”
Wheat farming is a major cropping activity and the commodity is highly valued, particularly its product, bread.
Bread has become a key staple food in Zimbabwe thus making wheat the second most important crop after maize.
Nationwide, by the beginning of November farmers harvested and delivered more than 100 000 tonnes of wheat from the 2020 winter cropping season to the GMB, eclipsing the 90 000 tonnes delivered for the whole of last year.
Zimbabwe needs at least 400 000 tonnes of wheat annually to meet demand.
The Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement plans to introduce summer wheat production starting with the 2021-2022 season to ensure wheat self-sufficiency and cut off future imports.
The Government recently acquired combine harvesters under the US$51 million John Deere programme and the US$51 million Belarus mechanisation facility to facilitate efficient harvesting.
