Tapuwa Mashangwa
IT is important to understand that every process in agriculture should never be overlooked regardless of how trivial it may seem.
Many farming setups and projects have failed all because the manager or those responsible took for granted or overlooked obligatory and paramount requisites because they felt or seemed unnecessary.
In our goal to develop and maintain a progressive agrarian system, we should be enlightened.Irrigation systems are overlooked yet the method, frequency and duration of irrigations have significant effects on crop yield and farm productivity.
For example, annual crops may not germinate when the surface is inundated causing a crust to form over the seed bed.
After emergence, inadequate soil moisture can often reduce yields, particularly if the stress occurs during critical periods.
Even though the most important objective of irrigation is to maintain the soil moisture reservoir, how this is accomplished is an important consideration.
The technology of irrigation is more complex than many appreciate. It is important that the scope of irrigation science not be limited to diversion and conveyance systems, nor solely to the irrigated field, nor only to the drainage pathways.
Irrigation is a system extending across many technical and non-technical disciplines. It only works efficiently and continually when all the components are integrated smoothly.
We should also take into account the importance of the development of an agro-processing industry, which contributes to exports thereby paramount in national earnings.
The agro-processing industry can be classified by the non-food agricultural products and the food agricultural products.
Non-food industries, in contrast to the food industries, have a wide variety of end uses. Almost all non-food agricultural products require a high degree of processing.
Much more markedly than with the food industries, there is usually a definite sequence of operations, leading through various intermediate products before reaching the final product.
Because of the value added at each of these successive stages of processing, the proportion of the total cost represented by the original raw material diminishes steadily.
There is no project that can be successful without adequate and proper planning. Fertiliser application and soil testing are inseparable processes.
The purpose of soil testing in high-yield farming is to determine the relative ability of a soil to supply crop nutrients during a particular growing season, to determine lime needs, and for diagnosing problems such as excessive salinity or alkalinity.
Soil testing is also used to guide nutrient management decisions related to manure and sludge application with the objective of maximising economic/agronomic benefits while minimising the potential for negative impacts on water quality.
In Zimbabwe currently where reliable and constant electricity supply is not available solar power and biogas plants are the solution to sustain and supply farm energy requirements efficiently and effectively.
The amount of energy from the sun that reaches Earth each day is enormous. All the energy stored in earth’s reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas is equal to the energy in just 20 days of sunshine.
Solar energy can be used in agriculture in a number of ways, saving money, increasing self-reliance, and reducing pollution.
It can be used for: heating purposes; crop and grain drying; greenhouse heating and for electricity.
Biogas is a renewable source of energy increasing in exploitation. It is produced by when planned optimally, agricultural biogas plants perfectly fit into farming and soil nutrition cycles.
The anaerobic digestion of manure, agricultural by products and energy crops not only provides electricity and usable heat – it also produces a high quality organic fertiliser and soil conditioner.
The nutrients contained in the substrate are broken down during the biogas conversion thereby increase the fertiliser quality of the digested product on the arable land. Plants can access the nutrients in digestate much easier than in untreated manure.
Depending on the type of energy production, the biogas is normally utilised on-site to produce one of the following: space heat (gas furnace); renewable electricity (engine + generator); renewable natural gas (gas scrubber).
Room for growth in Zimbabwe is present and the future remains green and with adequate and appropriate adjustments in the management and functionality of agriculture the future is bound to be only greener.
The writer is Engineer Tapuwa Justice Mashangwa, a young entrepreneur based in Bulawayo, founder and CEO of Emerald Agribusiness Consultancy. He can be contacted on 0739096418 or email: [email protected].