LIVINGSTONE MARUFU
Farmers’ organisations have called upon the government to make lime easily accessible and affordable to correct high soil acidity levels which leads to low to zero yields.
It is estimated that 70% of the Zimbabwean agricultural soils are acidic and productivity levels have gone down despite some farmers having enough fertilisers to use.
The correct balance is where the soil acidity (pH) is between 5.5 and 7.5.
Agriculture experts believe that there is an urgent attention to lime agriculture soils to improve production levels.
Zimbabwe National Farmers Union vice president Edward Dune told Business Times that there is an urgent need to correct pH levels to get optimum yields.
“We need the government to facilitate the procurement of lime so that it can easily be accessible to farmers to correct pH levels. We need a policy shift that helps the farmers to get lime at an affordable price that enables farmers to get the inputs before the season kicks off in the coming months,” Dune said.
The effects of high acidity levels are that there is low yields at a high cost for the farmers hence farmers profitability will be reduced.
Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union president Shadreck Makombe said acidic soils may have some or all of the following problems which include helpful soil micro-organisms may be prevented from recycling nutrients (e.g. nitrogen supply may be reduced), phosphorus in the soil may become less available to plants, deficiencies of calcium, magnesium and molybdenum may occur.
He said this will decrease the availability of plant nutrients, such as phosphorus and molybdenum, and increase the availability of some elements to toxic levels, particularly aluminium and manganese with essential plant nutrients being leached leading to low or zero production.
“Government is already extending a pack of lime to climate proof Pfumvudza/ Intwasa programme farmers and they have begun to correct acidity levels but the issue is that these are small pieces of land therefore there is a need for government to make lime easily accessible and affordable for farmers to buy and amend PH levels,” Makombe said.
“When the soil is very acidic, it means the soil is not well and it needs treatment and if you apply lime it means you are correcting the pH levels to the recommended levels.
“If a farmer wants to go by the book, he can take samples to the laboratory which gives him an amount of lime to be applied rather than universal application,” he said.
In a post Cabinet briefing, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica Mutsvangwa said Zimbabwe is not achieving high yields due to high acidity levels in the soils.
“The nation is advised that one of the biggest constraints to increasing productivity is soil acidity. “More than 70% of Zimbabwean soils are acidic and require liming in order to correct PH for optimum crop productivity,” Mutsvangwa said.
She said the Agriculture and Food Systems Transformation Strategy will therefore be reviewed to guarantee maximum productivity, and to appropriately plan for increased production and productivity across all subsectors of agriculture.
This will entail distributing seed according to regions in which they produce optimal yields.
The targets have been discussed and agreed with all provinces, led by the Ministers of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution.
