Embrace conservation agriculture, Guruve communal farmers told

GWEBI Agricultural College has called on Guruve communal farmers to embrace conservation agriculture as part of good agronomic practices as well as a measure against drought effects, thereby increasing yield and food security.

Speaking during a recent field training workshop in Guruve, Gwebi lecturer Mr Jeffrey Jinya said Government was concerned with the hefty grain importation bill, hence conservation agriculture was a complementary effort towards attainment of Vision 2030.

“We have a task from Government to work with farmers to reduce the grain importation bill due to low yields.

“This is as a result of poor farming methods and we are urging farmers to embrace conservation agriculture which has three main thrusts.

“There is need to preserve the soil structure by avoiding ploughing year in, year out. Rises in temperatures are causing loss of moisture, hence there is need for mulching and inter-cropping with cowpeas to conserve the moisture and soil structure as well, especially in times of drought,” he said.

Due to the labour-intensive nature of conservation agriculture, Mr Jinya said they would provide the necessary machinery which will be available for farmers at an affordable price.

“We are bringing the machinery necessary for this programme to work and it will be available for every farmer at an affordable rate. This will scrap the need for large quantities of fuel by farmers and one of the principles of this project is timeliness of farming, which means adequate land preparation,” said Mr Jinya.

The host farmer, Mr Francis Mutungwa, said he had been practising conservation agriculture for the past three years.

“I have been practising this form of farming, though on a small piece of land. This year I had two hectares under conservation farming and hope to have better yields,” he said.

“I have never felt the drought effects as my crops are in good condition.”