Zim agric yields lower than regional countries
Tabitha Mutenga
Financial Gazette
19/6/2019
Zimbabwe’s crop and livestock has significantly declined and is way lower than other regional countries, the 2018/19 Agricultural Sector Survey has revealed.
The report noted that several factors such as low skills and knowledge base of farmers, a weak research, education and farmer training and low levels of mechanization were combining to engender low productivity and low production in agriculture.
Other factors also include shortage of inputs and equipment, reliance on rain-fed agriculture, limited access to market information and marketing facilities, limited access to finance, limited security of tenure, pest and disease attacks including the fall army worm, low capacity to manage post-harvest losses and increased incidence and intensity of climate shocks such as El Nino.
The low production has resulted in decreased yield per hectare in terms of food crops compared to other regional countries such as Malawi, Zambia and South Africa.
“Yield per hectare which has for a long time averaged less than one metric tonnes has increased from 0,44 tonnes per hectare in 2016 to 1,15 metric tonnes per hectare in 2017,” read part of the report commissioned by The Financial Gazette in partnership with the Zimbabwe Agricultural Society.
However. on average, as noted by World Bank; Zimbabwe produced an average national yield of 0,64 metric tonnes per hectare. This is way below regional comparator countries like South Africa, Zambia, Malawi and Kenya who produced 5.3 tonnes, 2.8 metric tonnes, 1,67 metric tonnes and 1,66 metric tonnes per hectare, respectively,” the survey said.
For (he 2018/19 season, maize average yields decreased in 51 percent to 0,48 tonnes per hectare. The yields range from 0,27 tonne:, per hectare in the communal sector to 1,8 tonnes per hectare in the A2 sector.
With respect to wheat production, Zimbabwe compares well with Malawi and Kenya.
However, Zambia performed exceptionally well as well as South Africa with an average yield of 7.2 tonnes and 3,7 tonnes per hectare which is well above Zimbabwe’s 2,2 tonnes per hectare.
“With respect to soya beans, Zimbabwe compares favourably well with Kenya and outperformed Malawi whose national average yield is 0,87 tonnes per hectare. However, the World Bank noted that both South Africa and Zambia, although the)” witnessed low production output per hectare by international standards, they still performed better than Zimbabwe.”
Turning to the production of apples, Zimbabwe’s yield was nine tonnes per hectare which compared well with Kenya’s 9.8 tonnes per hectare.
However, Zimbabwe’s yield per hectare was four times lower than South Africa’s yield of 37,8 tonnes per hectare.
“This explains why South Africa is competitive when it comes to production of apples therefore explaining the reason why South African apples are displacing Zimbabwean apples,” said the survey which was sponsored by CBZ Bank and compiled by the African Economic Development Strategies.
As for cucumber production, Zimbabwe is the least performer on the production of cucumbers with a national average yield of 1.7 tonnes per hectare which is way below South Africa and Kenya’s output of 15 tonnes and 10 tonnes per hectare, respectively. [email protected]>