Welcome relief

THE government and farmers, particularly livestock producers in the southern provinces, were already fretting over poor harvests and the resulting food deficit, and the health prospects of cattle amid a protracted dry spell.

Farmers who had grown maize gave up hope around February as their crop had wilted. Bulawayo City Council engineers had also started checking the water levels at the local authority’s dams. They had already projected a new round of austerity measures in water use beginning in January. Bulawayo residents, aware of the inconveniences water shedding caused in 2012 and 2013, were deeply concerned.

Vultures were already circling in the cloudless sky of Matabeleland South, Matabeleland North, Masvingo, southern Midlands and Manicaland, waiting to buy farmers’ distressed cattle for a song.

But from last week, the country has been receiving a surprise downpour. Admittedly, much of the maize and even some hardier crops are already lost because of the three-month dry spell that started around late December until the ongoing countrywide torrent. Yes, a little of the drought-tolerant sorghum, millet and rapoko might be salvaged, as will a very late maize crop, but the bulk of the crops were scorched.

We state with a good degree of certainty that while crop harvests have been massively curtailed and a drought declared, livestock would be saved as the falling rains should dramatically replenish pastures. We have an interest in rainfall because Zimbabwe’s economy is agro-based and our agriculture is primarily rain-fed.

When the sector suffers the effects of drought, the economy is affected. Food shortages occur and scarce resources would need to be spent to import maize. This expenditure would be too big to bear for a challenged economy such as ours.