From George Maponga in Masvingo
Over 2 000 hectares of land have been secured from individual farmers and irrigation schemes in Masvingo for maize farming during the 2016/17 agricultural season under the Command Agriculture initiative introduced by Government.This represents about 50 percent of the provincial target of 4 000 hectares that should be put under the staple maize crop under the initiative. Masvingo Provincial Affairs Minister Senator Shuvai Mahofa, yesterday said Masvingo had so far secured 2 170 hectares of irrigable land for Command Agriculture.She expressed optimism that the province would meet its target of 4 000 hectares as more farmers continued to register for the initiative. “As of today (yesterday) we have managed to secure 2 170 hectares that will be put under irrigated maize across the province under the Command Agriculture initiative and more farmers are still registering, giving us hope that we will be able to meet our provincial target,’’ said Sen Mahofa.
Masvingo provincial Agricultural Extension Services officer, Mr Paul Poshai, who is spearheading the Command Agriculture initiative in Masvingo, said the provincial target of 4 000 ha was still achievable. “We are hopeful that we will be able to meet our provincial target or even surpass it, but it should be noted that over 70 percent of our province falls in Region 4 and 5, which makes it difficult to try and experiment with this initiative considering the high risks because of unfriendly weather conditions,’’ he said.
“The land that we have secured is from individual farmers who have access to irrigation and also smallholder farmers and in total we have 84 farmers who have committed their land for Command Agriculture in the province,” he added. Mr Poshai revealed that the majority of the farmers were from Masvingo and Chiredzi districts.
“In Chiredzi we have sugar cane farmers who made available part of their land for the Command Agriculture initiative, but it does not mean that they are abandoning sugar cane farming which is lucrative, but they are only committing a small part of their irrigable land in response to a national appeal by Government,’’ said Mr Poshai.
He said more farmers were still registering under the initiative in Masvingo. Government has already announced that the Command Agriculture programme had been oversubscribed countrywide. The $500 million programme is expected to produce 2 million tonnes of maize from 400 000 hectares half of which will be under irrigation in the current agricultural season.