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NewsDay

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Dry spell sparks fears in Matabeleland

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THE continued dry spell in the Matabeleland region has rendered any form of crop farming hopeless this season, Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers’ Union (ZCFU) president Donald Khumalo said yesterday.

THE continued dry spell in the Matabeleland region has rendered any form of crop farming hopeless this season, Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers’ Union (ZCFU) president Donald Khumalo said yesterday. REPORT BY SILAS NKALA

Khumalo told NewsDay farmers in the region were worried about the lack of meaningful rains this farming season. He said what made the situation worse was the livestock deaths recorded in the region as a result of the drought that has ravaged Matabeleland North, Matabeleland South and Bulawayo provinces.

About 9 000 cattle are believed to have succumbed to drought so far and there are projections that the figure could reach 20 000 by early next year. Khumalo said the drought in Matabeleland had escalated to a level where an urgent government mitigation programme to save both people and livestock was needed.

“The government must introduce irrigation schemes in Matabeleland because without irrigation there is no farming to write home about,” he said.

“It must put measures to mitigate farmers in terms of both crops and livestock farming.”

As a long-term measure, the ZCFU president said government should strive to empower people to produce their own food rather than depend on handouts.

“The Millennium Development Goal number one is for the government to enable people to participate in the farming activities which make it possible for the nation to have people producing their own food,” Khumalo said.

“It is the role of the government to also ensure that its people survive and we appeal to government to channel reasonable funds to the programmes to do with cattle farming and irrigation schemes particularly for Matabeleland.”

Khumalo said the death of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development deputy minister Seiso Moyo last week was a blow to farmers from Matabeleland as he was pushing for the government to implement programmes meant to mitigate the effects of drought on livestock.

“The death of Deputy Minister Moyo has brought us back to square one,” he said.

“With him we had a number of cattle mitigatory programmes which he was helping us to improve and that has been disturbed by his passing-on. We appeal that the government speedily and properly replaces him with a person of his calibre.”

Moyo died of a heart attack and was laid to rest at Lady Stanley Cemetery in Bulawayo on Monday.