The Minister of Justice, Legal, and Parliamentary Affairs, Ziyambi Ziyambi, stated that the Government will not hastily declare the El Nino-induced drought a state of disaster.
According to him, the country remains food self-sufficient. During a Senate session on March 14, he outlined mitigation measures, including expanding winter wheat cultivation, utilizing water bodies, drilling boreholes, and providing food relief to vulnerable individuals.
Midlands Senator, Daniel MacKenzie Ncube (ZANU PF), inquired about the Government’s measures to safeguard citizens from potential exploitation during this challenging situation. In response, Ziyambi said (via the Chronicle):
As a country, there is no need to panic or to be worried and declare a state of disaster because we have several measures to mitigate the effects.
I am pleased to inform the House that we have several facilities that will help farmers with centre pivots to increase wheat hectarage. Areas where the centre pivot will be placed have already been identified.
We cannot be beggars when we have several water bodies. There is no need to panic, we will be using multifaceted ways to respond to the situation.
As of now, we are still food self-sufficient. We had a good harvest last season, we are providing food aid to those pockets that are insecure.
Ziyambi said the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) was holding more than 245 000 tonnes of maize from bumper harvests recorded in past years, meaning some households still had grain stocks. He said:
We are now assessing the projected harvests. What Cabinet has done is to say we have several water bodies, the immediate solution is to put a bigger area under wheat to substitute maize or barter trade.
So at the moment, we are not panicking because we know the measures we have put in place will help and will ensure that even those with an appetite to fleece people, it will not help, we are also drilling boreholes.
Meanwhile, Lands, Agriculture, Water, Fisheries and Rural Development permanent secretary, 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, addressing the Senate thematic committee on peace and security, reported that Zimbabwe anticipates a harvest of 700,000 to 800,000 metric tonnes from all cereals planted during the 2023/24 summer cropping season due to drought. This falls short of the annual national requirement of 1.2 million metric tonnes.
He said The country’s primary reliance is on irrigated crops, which constitute a modest 3 per cent of the total planted crop. Said Jiri:
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 is now a write-off. This is what we are assessing and last time, 60 per cent 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, a few from Pfumvunza. But we are in a drought situation.
Jiri told lawmakers that the country expects not more than 800,000 metric tonnes from irrigation schemes and individual farmers who irrigated their grain crops and traditional grains.
