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‘Too early to assess maize output’

01 Mar, 2019 - 00:03 0 Views
‘Too early to assess maize output’ Tafadzwa Musarara

eBusiness Weekly

Business Writer
The Agricultural Technical and Extension Services (Agritex) has said it is too early to come up with forecasts of this year’s maize yield figures as technically the method of yield assessment requires crops to reach a certain stage.

This comes as some farmer organisations have said the country is likely to miss its maize requirements targets. Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union (ZCFU) reportedly said the country will only harvest 900 000 tonnes of maize this year, falling short of its annual requirements of 1,8 million tonnes.

Maize is a staple diet in Zimbabwe, and failure to meet targets will result in many households’ food insecure and putting pressure on Government to spend little foreign currency to import food.

The early maize forecast was, however, dismissed by Agritex as having been done too early.

Agritex, which is under the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Settlement, said that it is still in the process of gathering data for its assessment for the 2018/2019 agricultural season of maize production.

In an interview with Business Weekly, Agritex crop yield analyst Rutendo Nhongonhema, said crop assessment for the 2018/2019 agricultural season, was still at an early stage.

“Currently, we are in the middle of data analysis for the first round assessment, so we do not have the cropped area figures. The first round does not have yield estimation figures because technically it’s too early to come up with yield. We use a technical method that requires the crop to be at a certain stage to undertake the exercise.’’

The Grain Millers Association also said it is too early to comment on how the maize outturn will pan out.

“We still wait for data from Agritex,” said Tafadzwa Musarara chairman of the Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe.

“It can be too early to talk about that as we wait to hear from Agritex. Our yield assessment for maize produce for 2019 is not yet out therefore we are not in a good position to comment on that,” he said.

While the country received normal to below normal rainfall, the Met Department still believed that there are chances that farmers will get good yields if they planted the correct varieties for their specific areas.

“The forecast for the period from January to March 2019 is for normal to below normal rainfall across the whole country.

“There are chances that farmers may harvest depending mainly on the distribution of the rainfall during the season as well as management practices if they planted the right varieties for that area.

“The good thing this season is that we have had a relatively wet January compared to the past two seasons 2016/17 and 2017/18.

“This should improve the state of the crop throughout the country in general,’’ said Kwenda an Agricultural Metereologist.

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