eBusiness Weekly
HARARE – Farmers with access to irrigation facilities should intensify its usage to supplement the rainfall that is being received across the country to avoid total crop failure, an official has said.
Zimbabwe Farmers Union president Abdul Nyathi said rains being received across the country were not adequate.
The country is expected to receive normal to below normal rainfall this farming season.
“This time of the year in the normal seasons we should have crops that are almost mature or toward maturing,” said Nyathi.
“The only way to get out of drought and improve crop production is through irrigation, there is no way out.”
Nyathi said it was unfortunate that most farmers did not have access to irrigation facilities.
“There is a very negligible number (of farmers) with irrigation,” he said.
With over 70 percent of Zimbabweans living off agriculture, there have been calls for the government to invest more in irrigation to increase production and ensure food security.
The majority of Zimbabwean farmers rely on rainwater to irrigate, so when the rains stay away, their crops fail resulting many households requiring food aid.
Zimbabwe has many water bodies which are not being harnessed to irrigate crops, leaving communities vulnerable to the effects of increasingly variable rainfall due to climate change. – New Ziana
