by Agriculture reporter

Small Scale farmers across all eight rural provinces of the country have been given a target of 1.8 million tonnes of cereals and 360 000 tonnes of oil seeds in the forthcoming summer cropping season under the Pfumvudza farming concept,   the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement has said.

Posting on its Twitter handle, the Ministry said this would give the farmers a decent income from surpluses, hence transforming their lives.

"The development is expected to give a vast swathe of households not just food security, but also income from surpluses and cash crops to boost national standards of living. Under Pfumvudza, each of the rural provinces has to average 225 000 tonnes of cereals and 45 000 of oil seed at one tonne of grain and 200kg of oil seed from the average small scale farming household, " said the Ministry.

Under the Pfumvudza farming, each household will be supported with a standard input package comprising; 5kg maize seed, 1×50kg basal dressing, 1×50kg top dressing, fall army worm pesticide, traditional grain seeds for both oil seeds and cereals per household.

Farmers in drier parts of the country will be supported with smart crops such as cow pea, roundnuts and groundnuts.

The Pfumvudza concept has three key basic principles namely use of minimum or zero tillage, maintenance of organic mulch cover on the soil surface and use of crop rotations and interactions that include legume crops.

The concept will complement the Presidential Inputs Support Scheme.

Over a million farmers countrywide have since been trained on the Pfumvudza concept.