IN the last instalment in this series on soya bean promotion, we described our experiences when we first worked with communal farmers to promote soya bean production.
The first major achievement was to blow out the myth that soya bean production is too sophisticated for black small-holder farmers.
Two highly experienced white agricultural experts, themselves retired former directors of the Department of Research and Specialist Services (DRSS) in the Ministry of Agriculture, were commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation to visit our pilot soya bean trial sites to assess the viability of producing soya bean under communal farm management conditions.
They visited most of the 50 farmers clustered in groups of five.
They expressed total surprise at the quality of soyabean stands under communal farmer management.
One of them, Ron Fenner, confided to this author that they (whites) never imagined that a black person could grow such ‘wonderful’ soya bean crops!
The Command Agriculture Programme is reported to be targeting support for up to 60 000 ha of soya bean crops in the 2017/18 cropping season.
At an average yield of two tonnes/ha, we can expect 120 000 tonnes.
Most farmers will be growing soya bean for the first time. They will need appropriate training to ensure optimal production.
Farmer training, adequate and timely-delivered inputs and tillage and from Musikavanhu, plenty of sustained well-distributed rains, that is the winning formula.
We must pray hard for the rains.
Can the success of the pilot communal soya crop of 1996/97 season be repeated in 2017/18?
What preparations need to be put in place for small-holder farmers to successfully grow soya bean?
To answer these pertinent questions, we shall draw some lessons from our experiences in that pilot soya promotion programme of 1996/97.
First, the rainfall was normal to above normal in that 1996/7 cropping season.
Given that most small-holders and A2 farmers have no irrigation facilities, we have to rely on the assumption of normal rainfall.
We must, however, all in our different ways, appeal for adequate rains from our Creator, uMlimu/Musikavanhu!
But is rainfall alone enough to ensure a bumper harvest?
Of course not!
Even with plenty rains, we can easily get any of these three options: ‘sora beans’, ‘sorry beans’ and ‘soya beans’!
Let us look at the things that were put in place for farmers to produce a good soya bean crop.
In later articles, we will look at how to avoid the ‘sorry’ and sora beans!
Coming from an educational institution, the University of Zimbabwe (UZ), and working in close collaboration with the extension Department of AGRITEX, we all understood the critical importance of training farmers and extension personnel to ensure a solid technical support base for farmers.
Investments of all kinds in agriculture invariably leak and are lost through the knowledge gaps that exist among the various players in the agricultural value chains.
The most critical and often fatal knowledge gaps are those at farm level — the farmer and his personnel.
Poor management, itself a reflection of lack of knowledge of key operations, causes irreparable damage to the farm enterprise.
We must invest heavily in developing competent human capital.
They say agriculture is a ‘science’.
Put simply, this means there are specific steps that must be followed to achieve success.
These steps must be internalised or at least be read and followed religiously for optimum yields.
Given that soya was a new crop to the pilot farmers, we conducted a carefully arranged farmer training programme that included hands-on handling of materials and equipment.
Each single step was carefully explained and the trainees given ample opportunity to practise the operations.
Each pilot group of farmers, together with the local extension worker (EW), were trained in all the relevant stages of soya production.
All instructions, including information sheets, were in the local language of the people and also in English to cater for those alienated by colonialism.
Each extension worker (EW), supporting a pilot group of farmers, was supplied with written supplementary materials on soya crop management.
The thrust was on what to do, how to do it and also why do it that way.
Training sessions were conducted at open air places, in school classrooms or under shady trees.
They lasted only one day, at the end of which the farmers were issued with inputs for a 10th of a hectare.
The inputs package for 0,1 ha trial plot consisted of the following: 10 kg soya seed, 25 kg basal fertiliser, (compound L or D), 50 kg lime, one sachet (80g) rhizobium inoculant and 500 ml of fungicide.
If a farmer had extra resources to plant a full hectare of soya bean, the amounts for 0,1 ha were multiplied by 10.
This gives per ha: 100 kg soya seed, 250 kg compound L or D and 500 kg lime.
The 500 ml fungicide is enough for one application per ha. Also one sachet of rhizobium is still enough to inoculate seed for a full hectare.
So pilot farmers were applying a higher than recommended inoculation rate.
Fortunately, the rhizobium have no negative overdose effects; yields actually increase!
No ammonium nitrate was supplied; instead the rhizobium inoculant was expected to supply the soya with the required ‘top-dressing’ nitrogen fertiliser.
How rhizobium inoculant works
Rhizobium inoculant is made up of live bacteria stored in sugarcane waste (the carrier material), saturated with sugar for the bacteria to feed on.
The contents of one sachet of rhizobium inoculant is emptied into 750 – 1000 ml of water and stirred thoroughly.
The suspension is slowly poured over the seed which is heaped on a plastic sheet or other suitable material.
The seed is turned to mix thoroughly with rhizobium inoculant and then spread out in the shade for moisture to dry out.
This is the seed inoculation process.
The seed is then ready to plant by machine or dribbling by hand.
The rhizobium bacteria will attach to soya bean roots when the seed germinates, form nodules (swellings) and manufacture nitrogen fertiliser (ammonium) for the soya plant.
This process where nitrogen from the air is turned into ammonium is called ‘nitrogen fixation’.
The plant feeds the bacteria with sugars from the leaves.
So it is a win-win relationship; the rhizobium bacteria get sugar (food) from soya plant while the soya gets the ‘fixed’ nitrogen to use in growing and making up proteins in the seeds.
Some of the nitrogen in the proteins remains in the leaves, roots and stem called stover or crop residues.
If ploughed into the soil, the fertility is improved.
The crop remains can also be used to feed livestock or placed in the cattle pen to be turned into manure for use in the field.
We later discovered in our soya bean research that some of the rhizobia bacteria are killed by the heat in sandy soils.
So it is now recommended that farmers need to apply two or tree sachets of rhizobium inoculant per 100 kg seed in sandy soils so that enough rhizobia will survive to supply the crop with the required ammonium fertiliser.
Soya yields have been shown to increase with more inoculant added in sandy soils. In loam and clay soils, the rhizobia bacteria survive well and one sachet seems enough for the 100 kg seed planted per hectare.
If more rhizobia are added to the seed grown in loam and clay soils, the yields of soya do not increase.
So in soils that are not sandy, one sachet of rhizobium per hectare is adequate.
The 500 ml of fungicide was enough to spray one ha of soya to control soya bean leaf rust disease.
In the pilot programme, several farmers who planted 0,1 ha each could share the 500 ml of fungicide.
So we have covered the inputs for soya bean production as per our experience during the pilot soya bean promotion phase.
These are now tried and tested procedures that are still followed today.
But we must add that the farmers needed draught power to till the land.
Ox-drawn ploughs, spike harrows, single-row planters and cultivators were also required.
In the pilot phase of the soya bean promotion programme in 1996/97, only farmers who possessed the basic pieces of equipment were selected.
Later, other farmers also joined with some contracting tillage services from others.
Demonstrations of each single operation from land preparations to planting and all the way to harvesting were carried out under the supervision of the technical experts from University of Zimbabwe, AGRITEX, DRSS and various private sector seed, fertiliser and chemical companies as appropriate.
The Soya Promotion Programme was the epitome of the concept of Integrated Agricultural Research for Development (IR4D): farmers, researchers, input/output market players, public and private sector as well as NGOs and policymakers, all interacted on what proved to be a true innovation platform.
These experts not only taught and showed farmers how to do things correctly but they also were available throughout the season to advise farmers and extension staff.
The results literally exploded the myth that soya bean is a crop only for large-scale white farmers and that it is too sophisticated for communal farmers.
We demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that, given adequate inputs and training support, black communal farmers were capable of successfully growing soya bean.