The winter wheat planting season has already begun and the ZFU says farmers should be making land preparations and securing working capital to avoid late planting.
Winter wheat planting over recent years has been disorganised due to funding constraints and power shortages.
ZFU Second Vice President, Berean Mukwende said funding remains the major challenge to winter wheat planting as most farmers are still harvesting and have no working capital.
“Funds are a bit tricky so far as one or two companies are promising to contract farmers, which is quite a major concern. Policy makers and the general public might wonder why funding is a perennial problem but this is because some farmers planted soya beans and are still harvesting so they do not have funds. Even some that sold tobacco have not finished selling so right now they cannot buy inputs. It is different from summer cropping where farmers plant in November after having sold their crops in around March and April,” said Mukwende.
Winter wheat cropping is dependant on timing and farmers can maximise yields by planting as early as February but the last date for irrigating the crop falls on the 15th of May.
Last year, 4 000 hectares were put under wheat production against the targeted 50 000 hectares.
Payments by the Grain Marketing Board to majority of farmers who delivered their wheat are however expected to improve production.
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