eBusiness Weekly
Elita Chikwati
HARARE – Zimbabwe has the enough grain stocks with the surplus enough to cater for the nation for nine months, the Lands, Agriculture, Water, climate and Rural resettlement ministry has revealed.
The revelations were made when the Ministry secretary, Mr Ringson Chitsiko, Agritex principal director Mr Joseph Gondo and Grain Marketing Board operations manager, Mr Felton Kamambo appeared before the Parliamentary Portfolio committee on Peace and Security to explain on the food security situation in the country.
The committee was chaired by Dr David Parirenyatwa.
Briefing the committee, Mr Chitsiko said as at Monday December, 3, the maize stocks stood at 1 179 756 and 135 935 tonnes of small grains.
The country also had 119 794 tonnes of wheat as of yesterday.
“For the past two seasons Zimbabwe has not had any imports of 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.
“It is important that if we do not work around the El~Nino induced drought the glory can varnish. As the Ministry we are working on measures to adapt to the potential effects of El Nino,” he said.
Mr Chitsiko said El Nino phenomena was usually associated with the prolonged droughts or prolonged mid-season drought and floods but in Zimbabwe past El Nino seasons have been associated with droughts that have resulted in crop failure, livestock and wildlife deaths among other things.
Mr Chitsiko said a good season has come once in every four to five years.
“We have been providing farmers with drought tolerant crops such as small grains, short and medium season varieties of maize, and our scientists have also ben breeding heat tolerant crops.
“We are also working on irrigation rehabilitation, development and expansion. We wanted to ensure that we develop 200 hectares of irrigation per every district although this intervention has been affected by shortage of funds.
“We also have early warning information system and drought monitoring. Agritex fortnightly report will help us track the season so that the country is forewarned in the event of any danger,” he said.
He urged livestock farmers to harvest and store forage particularly in areas where there is decent vegetation.
“There is need for farmers to do water harvesting, and also embrace insurance for crops and livestock,” he said
Mr Gondo said the Ministry was also promoting safe post handling of produce to reduce post harvest losses. He said they were promoting the use of metal silos and had established demonstrations sites indifferent rural areas.
“We have also trained artisans to manufacture the silos. We are also promoting hermetically sealed bags as pests cannot survive under such conditions.
“For the past two seasons, we had challenges with the fall armyworm and we want to protect the current crops from pest. Farmers should increase scouting for early detection of pests before they cause havoc,” he said.
