The Sunday Mail
Lincoln Towindo and Theseus Shambare
THE 2023 tobacco marketing season opened Wednesday last week, amid the usual pomp and fanfare that generally characterise the annual ritual.
About 148 500 tobacco farmers are expected to sell their crop over the next few months.
Production of the golden leaf is expected to hit 230 million kg.
Last year’s output stood at 212 million kg and was produced by 123 000 farmers.
Tobacco production has been steadily rising over the last four seasons, driven by the increased number of smallholder farmers joining the lucrative sector, which was historically considered a preserve of white commercial farmers.
Now, the tobacco value chain employs over 1,2 million people with up to five million dependants, according to the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB).
The sub-sector rakes in close to US$1 billion annually, making it one of Zimbabwe’s biggest foreign currency earners.
Through implementation of the Tobacco Value Chain Transformation Plan, which seeks to increase production to 300 million kg by 2025, the authorities expect to facilitate an accelerated expansion of the sub-sector.
And there are indications farmers might achieve the target before 2025.
This is a microcosm of what is happening in agriculture.
A nascent revolution
According to the first-round crop, livestock and fisheries assessment report released recently, land put under 16 different crops — from maize, soya beans and cotton to sorghum, which are classified as strategic — has increased over the last two seasons.
Land under strategic crops stood at 3 517 696 hectares during the 2020-2021 cropping season, before rising to 3 674 149 ha in the 2022-2023 season.
Illustratively, two years ago, about 1 951 848ha were put under maize, before rising to 1 962 575ha this year.
The area put under sugar beans also rose from 46 158ha to 55 944ha over the same period.
The biggest increase was registered in land put under sunflower, where farmers produced the crop on 140 940ha, up from 26 965ha two seasons ago.
Conversely, land put under three crops — rice, cotton and sorghum — registered marginal declines.
There was also a general increase in area planted for most horticultural crops this season, with the area under blueberries increasing from 328ha in the 2021-2022 season to 506ha in the 2022-2023 season.
The area under sugarcane increased from 74 684ha in the 2021-2022 season to 79 722ha in the current season, according to the crop assessment report.
The report further says the area under tea decreased from 5 951ha in the 2022-2023 season to 5 662ha in the 2021-2022 season, while the area under Irish potato increased from 23 241ha to 23 982ha in the current agricultural season.
The document points to an embryonic agrarian revolution quietly taking place in Zimbabwe’s countryside, and one being waged by an army of beneficiaries of the Land Reform Programme.
According to the report, communal farmers contributed the largest area under maize (62 percent), while the large-scale and A2 farmers contributed 8 percent.
Smallholder farmers also anchored last winter season’s record wheat production.
The burgeoning agricultural production has not been a product of chance.
In fact, behind this silent revolution lies a cocktail of laser-focused Government interventions that have spurred production through farmer support programmes.
The current production patterns were attained using a programmatic approach meant to stimulate agriculture at both scale and pace.
The drive was implemented through the Rural Development 8.0 programme, which is a collection of high-impact interventions that include the Presidential Climate-Proofed Input Scheme; the Presidential Cotton Scheme; the Presidential Rural Development Programme; the Presidential Blitz Tick Grease Scheme; the Presidential Community Fisheries Scheme; the Presidential Poultry Scheme; the Presidential Goat Scheme; and the Vision 2030 Accelerator Model (V30 Accelerator).
In a recent interview with The Sunday Mail, Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development Permanent Secretary Dr John Basera said: “The agriculture sector has grown in leaps and bounds since the advent of the Second Republic, positively responding to deliberate interventions and initiatives across various crop and livestock value chains.
“Resultantly, the sector’s growth is now past an inflection point and is on a sustainable rebound.
“The sector is now on good stead to continuously attain food and nutrition security whilst subsequently contributing to the generation of foreign currency through exports, employment creation, providing raw materials to industry and, ultimately, supporting significantly to sustainable inclusive economic growth.”
The agriculture sector, he said, is projected to grow by 4 percent this year.
Having recorded significant gains in increasing the amount of land put under crops, the authorities are now focused on streamlining production to allow farmers to produce more on less, as well as more for less through optimising land use.
Planning
Experts attribute the burgeoning production and productivity levels in agriculture to focused planning.
For years, the sector had been hamstrung by poor planning, characterised by poor mobilisation of inputs, disjointed smallholder support programmes and failure to climate-proof production.
However, under the Second Republic, these glaring shortcomings have been addressed.
In what could very well be a first, Government has already crafted and published a report on the state of preparedness for the 2023-2024 summer and winter seasons.
The report outlines production plans for strategic crops such as wheat, maize, traditional grains, cotton and sunflower, as well as livestock production.
It reads: “The preparations for the 2023/24 summer and winter seasons are being done earlier than usual owing to the disturbances currently obtaining in Eastern Europe involving Russia and Ukraine.
“The conflict has destabilised the global energy market and now food could be next since these two countries are top exporters of major grains, fertilisers and vegetable oils worldwide.
“Furthermore, early preparation for the 2023/24 summer season and the 2023 winter wheat will enable consultations with key stakeholders in the agriculture sector to improve coordination and planning for the season.”
The plans are premised on the need to sustainably increase “crop production and productivity to meet and surpass the national requirements for both human consumption and industrial use”.
“The ministry thrust for the 2023-24 season is mainly focusing on achieving food security, oil seed security, as well as stock feed security.”
Crucially, the plan outlines how Government intends to stimulate maize output to three million tonnes against a national requirement of 1,2 million tonnes.
Increase production
The target areas for the major crops will only be increased by 10 percent, in line with the ministry’s thrust to increase production per unit area (increased productivity).
The plan outlines eight major interventions the authorities will undertake to stimulate enhanced productivity. They include early mobilisation of inputs, provision of intensive in-service training for agricultural extension officers and intensive farmer training through lead farmer/master farmer training (both physical and online) tailor-made to suit each agro-ecological region.
The authorities will also undertake a massive development and publication of reference materials on crop and livestock production, use mass media to disseminate crop production and good agronomic practices information and rewarding farmers through field days and localised competitions.
Further, there are plans to establish more agricultural learning centres and centres of excellence, as well as intensify on-farm trials and improve technology transfer.
In an interview, Agricultural Advisory and Rural Development Services (AARDS) chief director Professor Obert Jiri said Government plans to impress on the farmers the need to boost productivity.
“More strategies are lined up in order to achieve our goals as a ministry and as Government,” he said. “We aim at unleashing more master farmers countrywide. Our thrust is to transform farmers into business-minded people who will take our agriculture sector to the next level.”
Government, Prof Jiri said, is not targeting a massive increase in hectarage under production this year since its aim is to increase productivity at each planted area.
“To achieve this, we need farmers who are knowledgeable and adaptive to new technological methods that improve yields per unit,” he added.
“Correct crop targeting with agro-ecological matching will be key as we go into the summer cropping season.
Long-term planning
In the long-term, Government is employing a twin strategy of mechanising and modernising the agriculture sector through climate-proofing by building more water bodies and installing modern irrigation systems. To date, around 185 000 hectares are under irrigation, largely through implementation of the irrigation rehabilitation programme.
Government says 350 000 hectares will be under irrigation by 2025.
Farm equipment is also being provided through leases, a development that has gone a long way in helping mechanise production on farms.
2023/2024 crop production targets
Crop Target area (ha)
Maize 1 800 000
Sorghum 418 000
Pearl millet 275 000
Finger millet 27 500
Soya bean 77 000
Sunflower 160 000
Cotton 270 000
Wheat 85 000
