HARARE – President Emmerson Mnangagwa is now under pressure to declare a drought in Zimbabwe after almost the entire crop planted in the 2023/24 summer cropping season has been rendered a complete write-off, a Senate committee heard on Tuesday.
Appearing before the Senate thematic committee on peace and security, secretary for lands, agriculture, water, fisheries and rural resettlement, Professor Obert Jiri said dry land maize including what was planted under the Pfumvunza scheme and traditional grains are now a complete write -off owing to drought.
Jiri said Zimbabwe now expects between 700,000 and 800,000 metric tonnes of all cereals planted for the 2023/24 summer cropping season due to drought, out of an annual national requirement of 1,2 million metric tonnes.
He said the country was only pinning its hopes on irrigated crop, though it constitutes a mere 3 percent of total planted crop.
“The irritated crop is fair to good; we can get five tonnes per hectare.
“Pfumvunza crop was fairly good but now it’s not anymore. For traditional grains, we are getting a report of a write-off in some areas.
“The dry land crop, that one is now a write-off. This is what we are assessing and last time, 60 percent was stressed. Now we don’t have any.
“The only crop that we are basing our hope on is the irrigated crop. We may salvage a few tonnage from traditional grains, few from Pfumvunza. But we are in a drought situation,” he said.
Jiri said the country expects not more than 800,000 metric tonnes from irrigation schemes and individual farmers who irrigated their grain crops and traditional grains.
“We can conservatively get 700,000 to 800,000 metric tonnes out of our 1,8 million tonnes annual requirement.
“So, this year we have a deficit owing to drought,” he told lawmakers.
Jiri said it was clear that Zimbabwe was now headed for a drought adding that only President Mnangagwa had the power to declare such disaster.
“What I am presenting here is what I prepared for the minister (of agriculture) to present in Cabinet (Tuesday), and after that, the President will then declare a drought,” he said.
To mitigate the effects of drought, Jiri said the private sector has been encouraged to import more grain.
“Imports by the private sector must continue and we encourage them to import more so that we are able to get grain for mealie meal so that we do not have a disaster,” said Jiri.
