The country is generating 984MW against daily demand of 2 000MW

POOR planning continues to undermine productivity in the agricultural sector, and the current country-wide power cuts have exacerbated the situation, negatively affecting transplanting of the 2015/2016 tobacco crop.
Tobacco farmers who plant the irrigated crop from the beginning of September have been severely affected by the massive power cuts that extend for up to 16 hours per day.
This is expected to reduce the area planted and increase production costs as farmers resort to generators to irrigate the crop.
ZESA Holdings, last week published a tight load-shedding schedule that would see most parts of the country go without power between 4am and 10pm every day.
The blackouts have been blamed on breakdowns and repairs at Hwange Power Station and the low water levels at Kariba Power Station.
The generation report from ZESA Holdings indicate that Hwange is now generating 414MW, Kariba 500MW, Harare Power Station 30MW, Munyati 22MW and Bulawayo 18MW.
This means the country is generating 984MW against daily demand of 2 000MW.
The power cuts not only affected the transplanting of the tobacco crop, but they also had adverse effects on the wheat crop that was ready for harvest.
“This winter, for farmers who planted wheat, it was not easy but some of us managed to put a crop on the ground and the season was progressing well and load shedding had become a thing of the past and we were happy. All of a sudden when the crop was almost ready for harvesting, power cuts started and farmers had no option but to watch as the quality and the quantity of the crop was affected because of inadequate water supply,” the Zimbabwe Farmers’ Union vice president, Berean Mukwende said.
For a long time, the winter wheat crop has experienced numerous challenges which affected viability. These included intermittent power supplies, rising production costs and reluctance by financial institutions to fund production.
“The power cuts will definitely affect production in terms of agronomy, production and output. Farmers will be forced to reduce area planted considering the fact that the rainfall season is expected to start in December, meaning tobacco farmers will need to continue irrigating the crop and without adequate power supply some farmers may be forced to replant the crop,” Mukwende added.
Although farmers have previously negotiated for dedicated lines under the power supply support scheme especially for wheat and for tobacco growing areas, farmers have always argued that inadequate power supply was negatively affecting the winter crop.
Despite having adequate water to irrigate two million hectares, without adequate power supply, it would be impossible to take advantage of the country’s full irrigation potential to boost productivity.
Most of the country’s dams remain full and irrigation systems lie idle due to poor maintenance and up keep of equipment and of the 220 000 hectares installed irrigation, 153 000 hectares is functional.
Agricultural economist, Peter Gambara, said farmers needed to be innovative when transplanting their tobacco crop to avoid losses.
“The continued load shedding will affect the transplanting of tobacco. Farmers will have to be innovative by making sure they have water carts and a small engine to pump water into the water carts. They then use that for transplanting purposes whereby they apply water to the planting hole.
“They would then hope that they get electricity soon after transplanting so that they can then switch on the irrigation pumps and do more comprehensive irrigation of the planted crop. Otherwise there will be a lot of die backs of the transplanted crop,” he said.
As tobacco contract sales continue after 129 days of marketing, 199 million kilogrammes of tobacco valued at US$586 million had been sold at an average price of US$2,95 per kg.
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