SeedCo programme complements Command Agriculture
SEEDCO Zimbabwe’s productivity enhancing initiative, the 11 tonne Plus Club is poised to play a pivotal role in improving the country’s maize yield, an official said.
SeedCo commercial agronomist Mr Philip Matombo said the 11 tonne Plus Club introduced last year was set to encourage farmers to enhance their production and subsequently ensure the country was self-sufficient in food supplies.
He said this at an adjudication process at Mary Ellen Farm in Bubi District, Matabeleland North Province in the company of Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union (ZCFU) Matabeleland North chairman Mr Winston Babbage and Bubi District Agricultural Technical and Extension Services (Agritex) officer Mr Josphat Kujinga.
The team witnessed the harvesting and weighing of maize obtained from an allotted hectare at the farm to ascertain the yield achieved per hectare in line with the competition’s regulations.
“The 11 tonne Plus Club’s main objective is to encourage commercial farmers and ascertain that with our varieties from six and seven series we can achieve 11 tonne plus in the field. The other objective is to ensure that farmers compete and if the farmers compete ultimately as a country we will be self-sufficient and won’t import any maize.
“From my experience last year many farmers were asking how a particular farmer managed to attain a certain yield.
“The maximum attained per hectare last year was 21,9 tonnes per hectare. It’s benefiting a lot of farmers because those who attain better yields at provincial level will testify and teach other farmers to attain such yields,” said Mr Matombo.
He said the 11 tonne Plus Club competition complemented Command Agriculture.
The winner of last year’s competition was Mr Tinashe Ziki from Mhangura’s Highbury Farm who harvested 21,92 tonnes per hectare using the SC719 variety who won a double-cab Nissan, prize money and a trip to France, second place went to Mr Kuda Kudenga from Marondera’s Kudenga Farm who harvested 21,86 tonnes using the SC727 variety and on third place was a Mr E Nasmento from Mazowe, Esbury Farm who yielded 15,70 tonnes using SC 608 variety.
Mary Ellen Farm was the biggest maize producer in Matabeleland region in the 2016/17 season after cropping 201 hectares and managing to obtain 12,42 tonnes per hectare under Command Agriculture.
The Halsted Brothers-owned farm came on 12th position in the 11 tonne Plus Club.
Mr Kujinga said the high yield which was being realised at the farm was playing a big role in enhancing the country’s food reserves.
“We are very proud of this because from here Mary Ellen can give us almost 2 000 tonnes of maize, which is enough to feed almost 12 000 people so if we can have 10 people of this nature in the district, the whole of Bubi will be food sufficient,” he said.
Mr Kujinga attributed the high yield being obtained at Mary Ellen to adoption of good agronomic practises.
“I attribute the good yield achieved here to good management because they are irrigating, so there is no moisture stress to their crop and also they do soil sampling, which means they put the right fertilisers for their soils,” he said.
Last year, Mary Ellen managed to deliver 1 959,32 tonnes to the Grain Marketing Board and this year it has already sent 1 972,92 although harvesting is still underway.
For the 2017/18 season the farm put 196 hectares under maize.
Mary Ellen assistant manager Mr Ayanda Kumalo attributed the increase in yields to improved pest management.
“This year we have had a very good fall army worm control. We have a schedule where we follow on a daily basis our insecticide regime but we have been scouting. Whenever we seen any infestation we go in with a variety of chemicals and we just eradicate it,” he said.
The first outbreak of fall army worm in the country in 2016 was reported at Mary Ellen.
“It’s (fall army worm outbreak) been a learning curve, we have been fortunate enough to have the funding to invest in quite a lot of chemicals. We have been using the ones that seemed to be working well for us. We have been rotating chemicals so that the fall army worm doesn’t get resistant to one particular type of chemical, so that’s how we have managed to find a smooth control of the fall army worm this season,” said Mr Kumalo.
He urged farmers to embrace Command Agriculture as it provided them with inputs and a readily available market for their produce.
Mr Babbage said there is a need for Government to mechanise communal farmers to improve their crop yields so as to ensure that they contribute immensely to the country’s food security.
“It’s (the anticipated yield) a good achievement and it takes a lot of hard work and you also need mechanisation, without mechanisation you won’t achieve the tonnage this farmer has achieved of 12½ tonnes per hectare. Most of the smallholder farmers can’t achieve this because they don’t have machinery as they use traditional ploughs, cattle and donkeys for draught power. Thus Government should capacitate smallholder farmers with tractors, planters, boom sprays and probably a combine harvester per district to help them harvest,” he said.
He applauded Government for initiating Command Agriculture, saying it would go a long way towards improving the country’s food security.
“The farmer who is achieving here is part of the 11 tonne Plus Club and provides maize to the GMB under the Command Agriculture Programme auspices so it’s great achievement for the food basket,” said Mr Babbage.
Meanwhile, Vice-President, Retired General Dr Constantino Chiwenga said the Government was in the process of working on a programme to produce farming inputs locally so as to scale up farm production by reducing production costs.
He told delegates who attended the Zimbabwe International Business Conference last week in Bulawayo that Government was worried about farming input costs.
“Government has taken note of the high cost of inputs for farmers. For the past 18 years, the cost of getting loans was prohibitive and this increased the cost of importing inputs such as fertilisers. Government is determined to address this issue and sooner than later we want to be able to produce our own inputs like fertiliser using our God given natural resources.
“If we produce urea in the country using resources like methane gas and once we open the methane gas service then get ammonia, the price of urea will tremendously go down and equally, the cost of production goes down. Our inputs will be competitive compared to that from other countries.
“All the ministries concerned are working on this idea and will be coming to consult and partner with you so that we can produce our inputs cheaply,” said VP Chiwenga.