The Sunday Mail
Ishemunyoro Chingwere Agriculture Corner —
I hope grain harvesting for the 2016/17 season is going on well. I shudder to think that a good number of farmers are now waiting for the next rain season, which will not be with us probably until November — at least about six months away from today, before going back to the fields for any sought of production.
But before delving into that, let me focus on grain harvesting, which I am convinced is what almost every farmer is seized with, thanks to the bumper harvest that the country expects on the back of a combination of Command Agriculture, the Presidential lnput Support Scheme and good rains. Several researches have concluded that Sub-Saharan Africa is losing between 20 and 30 percent of total yield, especially grain, due to poor harvesting and post-harvest handling.
In simple mathematics, between two to three sacks out of every ten sacks from the field is lost due to poor harvesting and post-harvest inefficiencies. For the commercial farmer who understands the language of large quantities, this is between 20 and 30 tonnes of what you would have laboured for to produce 100 tonnes.
Still with figures dearest farmer, Zimbabwe’s projected maize yield for the 2016/17 season is 2,7 million tonnes, so by extension if not done properly, the country might lose up to 800 000 tonnes to poor harvesting and poor post harvesting flaws.
Like planting itself, harvest is planned for and there are best practices which farmers must adhere to if they are to enjoy full value of what they would have laboured for, sometimes all-year round. While post-harvest practices contribute a lot to a farm’s profitability, my gripe this week, dearest farmer, is on the harvesting itself for this is the stage which most farmers are at. My search for the best advice on harvesting led me to Mr John Basera who also happens to be the head of agronomy services with seed-producing and marketing giant, Seed-Co.
“Farmers should always aim to minimise harvest and post-harvest losses if they are to enjoy the benefits of tilling the land,” said Mr Basera.
“Farmers should prepare for the harvest and by this I mean they must do a number of things, chief among them a health check of the machinery to be used in harvesting because most of the grain that feeds the nation is harvested by machines. However, we don’t recommend the use of machinery in logged or fallen crop as these will be lost to the machine’s drive through the field, so my advice is that farmers must first manually pick the logged crop.
“There is also a possibility of losing to machinery knock-downs and it is important that a combine harvester for example, must be fine-tuned especially on the head and conform to the crop spacing used by the farmer.
“Ground unevenness can also result in losses and in such a scenario we urge the farmers to make use of gleaning, where they manually collect leftovers after mechanised harvesting,” he said.
Mr Basera also had a word of advice for the small-scale farmer who might not be in a position to make use of mechanised technologies, at least for now. The most important thing when harvesting, Mr Basera noted, is what he called harvest indices. These are harvest features with moisture level being the most important maize harvesting index, the same applies to soyabeans and all other small grains. For soyabeans, it is very important for the crop be harvested before it starts to shatter.
“Moisture content at harvest in grains should be below 20 percent and as low as 12,5 percent before a farmer can consider storage.
“However, there is a small holder who is not able to scientifically check the moisture so the advice is to wait until the crop generally turns brown,” he said.
Going back to the issue of waiting for the summer cropping season, it is very important dearest farmer that you embrace intensive farming at whatever level you are. A fortnight ago; Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Deputy Minister (Livestock), Honourable Paddy Zhanda, told this publication that the Government would love to see more commercial farming taking place.
We can’t afford to have land that lies fallow for nine months of the year and gets to be used productively for three months only every year. The excuse that winter farming is a preserve for the rich due to the exorbitant fees of running an irrigation will not get Zimbabwe anywhere.
The country needs farmers with zeal and just last week, I bumped into small irrigation pumps which can be a good starting point for a serious smallholder farmer. For less than $100, a farmer can take delivery of a manual irrigation pump that can pump 60 litres of water per minute and can effectively irrigate two acres in a day.
Still on efficiency and intensive farming, many might want to jump into Government’s Command Aqua farming programme, which according to Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, will be rolled out in May. An aqua farmer, Apostle Joseph Murata, last week said fish farming is one of the most lucrative farming ventures a farmer can take up.
“I do the Kariba Bream on my plot and it is one of the easiest yet lucrative ventures,” he said.
“In three months they can multiply into millions and a farmer can harvest, especially when you use noodles or pellets to feed them,” he said.
Feel free to give us your feedback and share your agriculture experiences at [email protected]
