The Sunday News
Nkosilathi Sibanda, Business Correspondent
THE country’s premier agricultural exhibition scene, the Zimbabwe Agricultural Show, is on course to implore farmers to support Government’s efforts of turning around the fortunes of the farming sector by practising a culture of fact-based farming.
In the next two weeks, farmers and stakeholders are to be presented with essential knowledge and data on how the sector was performing and expected to progress in the Zimbabwe Agriculture Sector Survey.
Organised by the Zimbabwe Agricultural Society (ZAS) and various partners in the value chain, the survey is set to equip the industry with findings and deliberations in an event slated for 18 September in Harare. The survey, which has been an annual feature of the farming calendar, attracts thousands of farmers, investors in the agriculture sector across the country which was supposed to be held last month.
Government recently launched the Agriculture and Food Systems Transformation Strategy which sought to align farming as a business that can accrue a US$8,2 billion economy. With emphasis on conservation agriculture taking stage, concerns over climate change remained a thorny issue, especially on how farmers ought to adapt to unpredictable weather changes.
Analytical evidence from the World Bank’s Agriculture Sector Risk Assessment Report has stressed the need to strengthen Zimbabwe’s resilience to agricultural risk. The sector survey was also meant to produce findings that will serve as a mechanism to identify and prioritise agricultural improvement areas, according to information obtained from ZAS on Thursday last week. Farmer organisations also pinned hopes that the survey presents an opportunity for the industry to prepare for the commencement of the planting season, amid high expectations of a normal rainfall this year.
ZAS head programmes and public affairs Miss Roberta Katunga said the survey will run under the theme ‘Production, Productivity, Profitability’.
“This year’s survey is once again meant to complement Government’s attempts to revive the country’s agricultural sector, emphasising on the need to initiate and sustain a culture of fact-based farming, fact-based policy making and fact-based investment. Moreover, the survey will provide a benchmark upon which future improvements in the sector will be measured, ironing out disparities that have stood in the way of sectoral growth in the past.”
She said the keynote speaker was expected to be the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement Dr John Basera. Being aware of the need to prevent the spread of Covid-19, organisers revealed that the survey launch will only have 50 seated, with the meeting being streamed online as well.
The importance of the survey was evident in its debut edition, with some of the most glaring findings from last year’s survey highlighting how provincial maize areas did not correlate with total output. As of last year, data from the survey showed that the Midlands province had the highest maize area at 19 percent. The province’s production volumes stood at 14 percent.
“In contrast Mashonaland West, which has the second highest area under production at 17 percent, recorded the highest volumes at 27 percent. Mashonaland Central, which only has 12 percent area, was the second highest producer of maize at 21 percent,” survey results shown.
The study also revealed that the agricultural sector is small-holder led, with over a million communal farmers reliant on rain-fed agriculture.
In previous findings, the survey identified climatic changes and unpredictable weather patterns as having an impact on productivity. It has also been seen that smallholder farmers continue to make a huge contribution to food security both at household and national level. The sector survey was seen as a platform that informs the whole value chain of the agriculture industry. Findings from the survey have of late generated global interest from potential investors with a keen interest in the country’s farming sector.
