By Elton Ziki
INCREASING crop yields as a model for positive impact on agricultural productivity deserves clear cut focus on the aspects involved.
After understanding the fundamental attributes involved in attaining Vision 2030, ‘Towards a Prosperous and Empowered Upper-Middle Income Society by 2030’, agricultural production systems must become more efficient in meeting the needs of a growing economy and population.
Agricultural economists, extension services practitioners, crop scientists, soil experts and those involved in agricultural development and planning must continuously harmonise work ethics in the agricultural sector to retain or surpass our breadbasket status by the set time in the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1).
Crop yields are an essential aspect of every farmer’s day, determining how profitable their farmland can be.
Learning how to improve crop yields is key to successful farming, and access to new technologies and planting methods has given farmers, the world over, an opportunity to increase crop production. Chapter 4, Section 283 of the NDS1 states that: “Major factors that are driving food insecurity in the country include, among others, natural shocks, low skills and knowledge base of farmers, shortage of inputs, low levels of mechanisation, reliance on rain-fed agriculture, limited access to market information and marketing facilities, limited access to finance and limited security of tenure.”
It is the low skills and knowledge base of farmers that contribute to low yield levels across many crop and livestock production systems on many farms around the country.
Therefore, farmers must appreciate that yields are critical to farming.
The model of optimum-performance agriculture is fundamental in understanding the importance of crop yields.
How much a farmer can produce on a given piece of land is essentially how efficient one is as a farmer.
In today’s economy, being able to efficiently farm is as important as ever.
One wants to ensure maximising space and land cultivated has a corresponding rate of return.
Crop yields not only determine a farmer’s efficiency, but his/her bottom-line.
Farmers must appreciate the elements that lead to increased productivity in agriculture.
These include inputs, labour, irrigation, mechanised farm equipment, storage facilities and extension services.
It is the inputs and storage elements that are of concern to us as we seek to grow our yield potential and preserve the harvest in a manner that reduces harvest and post-harvest losses.
To increase crop production and crop yield, a farmer will have to approach each decision with attempts to increase farm efficiency to increase profitability and competitiveness.
The state of soil, seeds and planting practices will determine the overall strength and quality of the final product.
The science behind seeds has greatly improved, but there are still more techniques and methods to increase overall efficiency on the farm and that ultimately is to increase overall yield output.
Thus having been said, the most critical stage for every farmer is the time of harvesting the crop under cultivation that has reached maturity.
This is the most important stage in farming when the winter wheat has matured, the tomato field ripening or a cotton field ready for picking, including the stage when broods of birds or porkers and bullocks are ready for slaughter.
We may call this ‘the returns stage’ where every farmer is rewarded for his/her work.
This is where we talk of profit and loss.
As farmers, we must handle our harvest in a manner that maximises returns through reduction of harvest and post-harvest losses based on harvest techniques, handling of harvested agricultural produce and its storage, preservation and packaging. In this write up, focus will be on techniques, strategies and methods farmers can adopt to maximise yields through reduction of harvest and post-harvest losses.
After doing all by the book to increase yields, a farmer cannot afford to rest on his/her laurels.
Providing sufficient nutrients to the crop, enough water, managing pests and weeding the crop the farmer is guaranteed a high yield which must be protected from pests, rain or humidity, heat or fire, frost and even theft.
Although complex and highly variable across farms, the myriad of challenges to raising agricultural productivity and overall yields are well known to the community, particularly in Zimbabwe.
Limited access to improved seeds and quality planting materials, low soil fertility and inadequate access to fertilisers, both organic and inorganic, affects yield potential.
Poor access to extension and advisory services, dysfunctional markets and droughts and floods that may be associated with climate change, among others, cannot be overlooked.
It begins with strengthening the production and delivery efficiency of agricultural input and service systems.
Quality inputs, such as improved seeds and fertilisers, are essential to raising productivity yields per unit area planted under both the rain-fed and irrigated conditions.
In addition, strong extension and advisory services are important for enhancing the adoption and efficiency of improved inputs, thereby impacting output.
Providing support to value chains led by farmers in clusters or organised settings and the private sector that deliver new technologies, extension and advisory services, and market innovations to farmers, both small and large-scale must be considered.
The Climate-Smart Agriculture Investment Plan (CSAIP) reveals that, with a changing climate, maize, a staple food crop in Zimbabwe, is expected to see a 33 percent yield reduction by 2030. Additionally, increases in temperature were estimated to result in decreases in the income generated from beef cattle by 11-13 percent by 2040.
An increase in temperature is also linked to increased incidence and prevalence of livestock disease.
Thus, without action to increase resilience, climate change will likely leave Zimbabwe’s agriculture sector in fast decline.
Without action, the report further warns that exogenous changes, such as climate change and climate-related shocks, will leave the agricultural sector in decline.
The investment plan recommends that the Zimbabwe Government climate-proof its agriculture sector and invest in climate-smart agriculture practices similar to the Pvumvudza/Intwasa conservation agriculture it spearheads.
“Climate-Smart Agriculture practices can help improve agricultural productivity in a way that is both resilient to future uncertainties,” said Easther Chigumira, a World Bank senior agriculture specialist.
“Crop-switching to drought and heat tolerant crop varieties are estimated to increase yields by 3-12 percent across all crops. Although investment in irrigation has high start-up costs, it provides estimated yield increases of between 50 and 140 percent. The country currently does not meet its full irrigation potential.”
“The losses in agricultural productivity could be at the core of many of Zimbabwe’s macroeconomic challenges and there is a need to reverse the decline within a broader framework of macroeconomic reforms and private sector development,” said Stella Ilieva, World Bank senior economist for Zimbabwe.
Losses in agricultural productivity are also attributable to the total final crop output.
Having provided the right inputs for the crop, the farmer must reap, bearing in mind the need to protect every grain of the yield.