BY TAGWIREYI KUDAKWASHE
THE United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisations (FAO) yesterday urged the country to promote awareness on healthy eco-systems by enhancing soil production in order for Zimbabwe to have good agricultural yields.

Its statement comes at a time when the world commemorated the World Soil Day on December 5, meant to promote awareness on the importance of healthy ecosystems by tackling issues related to soil management and salinisation, which causes erosion, leading to poor agricultural yields.

This year, FAO commemorated the World Soil Day under the theme Halt soil salinisation and enhance soil production.

Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union (ZCFU) president Shadreck Makombe yesterday told NewsDay that the main emphasis of this day was ensuring that people appreciate the importance of soil in agriculture.

“On this day we put emphasis on the importance of soil management in agriculture. Soil supplies essential nutrients, water, oxygen and root support to our food-producing plants. We, therefore, go along with FAO, saying healthy soils are the basis of healthy food production. We are happy that the United Nations has chosen this day to commemorate the importance of soil,” Makombe said.

He said ZCFU encouraged good land conservation methods.

“As it stands, we are affected as farmers by land degradation which is being caused by illegal miners. We, therefore, humbly implore authorities not to tire and improve their efforts to curb these illegal mining activities, lest desertification creeps in badly and affects generations to come. We must not suffer because of our carelessness.”

Last year, FAO encouraged people around the world to proactively improving soil health.The campaign is aimed at fighting soil biodiversity loss.

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