Crops a total write-off, government official says

Zimbabwe expects a modest harvest of between 700 000 to 800 000 tonnes for all cereals planted for the 2023/24 summer cropping season due to drought, a senior government official said Tuesday.

Appearing before the Senate thematic committee on peace and security, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Fisheries and Rural Resettlement, Prof Obert Jiri, said dry land maize, pfumvunza and traditional grains were a complete write -off.

The country was only pinning hopes on irrigated crops, but this was a mere three percent of the total planted area.

“The irritated crop is fair to good, we can get five tonnes per hectare. Pfumvunza crop was fairly good but now it’s not anymore. For traditional grains, we are getting a report of a write off in some areas,” Prof Jiri said.

“The dry land crop, that one is now a write-off. This is what we are assessing and last time 60 percent was stressed; now we don’t have any. The only crop that we are basing our hope on is the irrigated crop. We may salvage a few tonnage from traditional grains, few from pfumvunza.

But we are in a drought situation,” he said.

Prof Jiri said the country expects not more than 800 000 tonnes from irrigation schemes and individual farmers who irrigated their crops.

“We can conservatively get 700 000 to 800 000 metric tonnes out of our 1.8 million tonnes annual requirement, so this year we have a deficit owing to drought,” he told lawmakers.

To mitigate the effects of drought, Prof Jiri said the private sector has been encouraged to import more grain to top up local supply.

“Imports by the private sector must continue and we encourage them to import more so that we are able to get grain for mealie meal so that we do not have a disaster,” said Jiri. – New Ziana