The Sunday News
Vincent Gono in Chilonga, Features Editor
“LOCUSTS finished our crops and we are faced with a serious food deficit. Most villagers have nothing to harvest except that we have sacks stashed with locusts in our homes and we are not worried about relish these days and in the coming few weeks,” said a farmer, Ms Ratidzo Tiringindi in a compensatory tone.
“With some families that are not cushioned by the Zimbabwe Resilience Building Fund (ZRBF) projects, the situation is really bad,” she added.
Describing how the locusts landed, Ms Tiringindi of Tonono village, Ward 7 in the Chilonga communal area in Chiredzi district, said the swarm of indigenous locusts known as Ruspolia differens or madhumbudya in Shona landed early this year with a thunderous noise at night that scared villagers.
“The noise was so loud and scary, it could frighten even the most alert cockroach in the house. Almost all the villagers heard the noise but we didn’t know what it was and so we proceeded to bed. We really never suspected anything of that sort but in the morning it was something else. Disaster. The locusts had caused extensive damage to the crops in the fields,” she added.
Angry at the damage, she said, the villagers started harvesting them and they filled buckets, of course depending with the number of people picking them in the family.
The swarm of locusts, she said, attacked mainly white sorghum which they had planted like never before after giving heed to advice from the Agritex officers working with Zimbabwe Resilience Building Fund (ZRBF) to plant small grain crops that are resistant to drought.
She added that a number of households were left counting their losses after the attack on their crops by the locusts.
“They harvested our crops and the villagers responded by harvesting them because they are an indigenous delicacy.
So it was tit for tat,” she said.
She said word was relayed to the offices and before they even responded by supplying the requisite pesticides the numbers ebbed as people aggressively picked the locusts and it ended like that.
Another villager Ms Moline Motsi said she was worried and disappointed that all her efforts went down the drain after the locusts finished everything in her field.
“Most villagers here did not get anything. Their sorghum was all eaten away by the swarm of locusts. Once they land in a field, they do not play,” she said.
Agritex supervisor in the district Ms Sibusisiwe Tshuma confirmed that the locusts indeed attacked the small grain crops in a number of wards in the district leaving a number of households food insecure.
“Yes, locusts attacked and reduced the yields significantly in a number of wards in the district. The most affected wards are Ward 1-12 and Ward 22. They descended and ate everything before people harvested. The situation is sad in most of the affected wards.
“They however disappeared because people started harvesting them with a vengeance. And so I believe their life cycle was somehow disturbed. And it was before any interventions in form of chemical control was put in place,” said Ms Tshuma.
She said the locusts attacked white sorghum which is planted for sadza because it is sweet than the red sorghum.
“So, a number of households were left with red sorghum which is not for sadza but mainly for beer. People plant it as a cash crop. In terms of food therefore those whose crops were attacked are not secure.”
She however, said the uptake of small grain farming was encouraging in the district with a number of people in the communities taking heed of advice from government and its development partners to adopt climate smart agriculture techniques and community adaptation action plans.
Ms Tshuma said in light of the locusts induced drought in the communities that were attacked, people should pay more attention to ZRBF – ECRAS interventions of establishing disaster risk reduction through projects aimed at empowering the communities and divorce them from the reliance on freebies.
Expert information relayed to the Sunday News say an estimated 4 897 household had their crops seriously affected by the nocturnal locusts in Chiredzi (2 457) and parts of Mwenezi (2 440).
Mr Chigume Darikai who is the current Chief Negari of Mwenezi said although his community was not affected by locusts, it was also faced with a serious food deficit as the rains never gave people the chance to cultivate crops.
“When the rains came it was incessant. People never got the chance to cultivate their crops. So when it stopped people started farming but it was too late and that is why you see all this green that is even drying up before maturity because of the sun,” he said.
He however said there were government interventions through social welfare department but because of Covid-19 people were no longer getting food.
He said there was no big irrigation scheme in Mwenezi to talk about but paid tribute to the efforts of ZRBF – ECRAS that he said were paying dividends as their water harvesting techniques were being embraced and people were making progress at household and community level.
