HARARE The accessibility of lines of credit, the timely provision adequate farming inputs and good rainfall pattern will boost the agricultural yields in the forthcoming season, a senior official from Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union (ZCFU) has said.
The ZCFU director Phillip Tavuyanaho told The Zimbabwean this week that the lines of credit that the various agriculture unions have availed could surpass the previous yield levels. We are very positive that the agricultural output will exceed the 18 percent growth that was recorded last year. On the other hand the farmers are excited about the prospects of the good rainfall this season, said Tavuyanaho.
The Meteorological Services Departments in Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe have issued weather forecasts predicting normal to above normal rainfall for the region this year. If all the farmers access the lines of credit, it will be a major breakthrough for the agricultural sector. Many farmers have been facing financial problems to boost their operations. The various unions have availed the lines of credit to the farmers and we hope that this will be a milestone, said Tavuyanaho. He said it was of paramount importance for the farmers to be provided with enough farming inputs.
This the most important factor that the farmers should be provided with sufficient farming inputs. Apart from the poor rainfall patterns in the previous farming seasons, the unavailability of adequate farming inputs has remained the greatest challenges for the farmers. We have targets and for maize we are targeting to realize five tones per hectare and 2000kgs for tobacco, he said, adding that cotton harvests might record 800kgs per hectare.
The previous Zanu (PF) government through the Ministry of Agriculture and Mechanization headed by Joseph Made continuously failed to provide adequate farming inputs to the farmers. Selected Zanu (PF) members and war veterans benefited from the supply of inputs and the farm mechanization programme done by Zanu (PFs) Gideon Gono the Reserve Bank governor.
Zanu (PF) chiefs and top officials got the larger supplies of inputs with some of them sharing the inputs to their relatives while other inputs were sold at the black market albeit exorbitant prices. This saw most the farmers failing to access the inputs leading to disastrous farming yields.
Post published in: News