The rains are just around the corner and committed farmers should be winding up preparations for planting. Normal to above normal rains have been predicted for this coming cropping season so there is no reason why we should not realise another bumper harvest.

Last season the country harvested more than its food requirements so the emphasis this coming season is to produce for exports. The Government under its specialised maize production for the 2016/2017 summer cropping season, had set its target at seven tonnes per hectare but some farmers managed to produce more than 20 tonnes per hectare which is very encouraging.

Government has stopped maize imports thereby saving a lot of foreign currency which was being spent on importing maize.

More than 1,6 million households benefited from the Presidential Inputs Support Scheme last season and more are going to benefit this coming season from both the Presidential Inputs Support Scheme and Command Agriculture which have been expanded to cover other areas.

Government is providing inputs such as seed, fertiliser and chemicals and has already mobilised the required funding for the 2017/2018 season. We want to believe that seed houses and fertiliser companies have stocked enough to meet demand. A number of farmers participated in the Command Agriculture programme last season and many more are expected to participate this coming season.

In order to mitigate the effects of climate change, Government is rehabilitating irrigation schemes as well as establishing new schemes so that some of the crops are cultivated under irrigation. Irrigation schemes enable farmers to grow crops throughout the year. More than 300 000 families have benefited from the Government’s land reform programme since the launch of the fast-track land reform programme in 2 000.

The majority of the land reform programme beneficiaries are the once marginalised black people who are now proud owners of pieces of land in prime farming areas which used to be a preserve of the whites. The Government embarked on the land reform programme to correct the skewed land ownership which favoured the whites.

Most blacks before independence were confined to barren land while the few whites were settled in fertile land across the country. What was, however, surprising was that despite cultivating the poor soils, the black farmers produced about 80 percent of the country’s food requirements.

Government soon after independence embarked on the land reform programme meant to correct the past imbalances in the ownership of this finite resource. Now that the Government has put in place programmes to empower the new farmers, the country should regain its status of being the Southern African region’s bread basket.

Experience has shown that farmers who prepare for the planting season, realise good yields. Last season most of the inputs were delivered to farmers before the onset of the rains except for Ammonium Nitrate which was in short supply.

It is our fervent hope that those involved in the distribution of inputs learnt from last season’s shortcomings.