Zimbabwe should seriously promote small grains
AS THE country faces yet another El-Nino induced drought, it is prudent to bring up the issue of adopting drought friendly crop varieties yet again.
Zimbabwe and most Southern African countries have been in this predicament before.
The only difference is that we have had two good seasons since 2015 and the country has enough grain reserves to meet itself food requirements for the next nine months.
“For the past two seasons, Zimbabwe has not imported any major grains such as maize. We have 1 179 156 tonnes of maize, which is twice our mandatory Strategic Grain Reserve of 500 000 tonnes.
“The nation is comfortable since the surplus is enough to see us through nine months. This means the supply of the staple diet in the country is out of danger,” the Secretary for Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement, Mr Ringson Chitsiko said this week.
This is good, but only if the country can produce enough grain this season to ensure that we continue to have surplus.
If Government “does not work around the El Nino-induced drought, the glory can vanish”.
This is the right time for the country to seek sustainable solutions to food self-sufficiency instead of waiting to import grain from other countries and seeking food aid from donors, when drought becomes imminent.
Government needs to come up with measures to adapt to potential effects of El Nino.
Climate change and variability have resulted in a shift in rainfall patterns in many parts of the country.
This has given rise to the need to find alternative food crops, which may be suitable for such conditions.
There is an urgent need to look at the options for food security and promotion of better small grain varieties is one ideal option for food security under the circumstances.
Small grains include sorghum, pearl millet, finger millet and cowpeas and rapoko, amongst others, which are drought tolerant and can grow in the face of low rainfall.
If grown properly, small grains can be a viable solution to food insecurity, mainly because of their adaptation capabilities to hot dry humid areas vulnerable to climate change.
However, there has been no clear cut policy of promoting small grains production, especially among the small holder farmers in Zimbabwe and resultantly their production has been low.
But as Government continues to find sustainable ways to finance agriculture, it would be ideal if such financing is also extended towards small grains because farmers who take up these crops face a lot of challenges.
The labour intensiveness associated with the processing of the small grains usually deters most farmers.
Nonetheless, there are plenty of opportunities for research and development into technologies that can be used to improve the processing of these small grains.
With time, farmers will come to realise the benefits that small grains present in increasing food security.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has suggested that sorghum and millets be distributed in low rainfall areas while maize is distributed to high rainfall areas.
This would bring about the much needed diversification from maize as the dominant source of food in Zimbabwe.
FAO argued that commercial processing of sorghum and millet into value added products in developing countries has the potential to stimulate economic development.
Therefore, policies that support increased production of sorghum and millet should be viewed in a holistic approach regarding contributions they can make to the macro economy and not only as a means of increasing food security to those in semi-arid areas.