Agricultural Reporter

Farmers who received inputs this season’s winter wheat farming inputs from Government should account for them and those who did not use them should make an effort to return them to the nearest Grain Marketing Board (GMB) depot, a cabinet minister has said.

In a statement today, the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Resettlement, Dr Anxious Masuka said any farmer who did not use the inputs received from Government should return them before 20 June 2021.

“In this regard, farmers should account for all inputs that they have accessed through the Government supported schemes (Presidential Winter Wheat Scheme and National Enhanced Agricultural Productivity Scheme). Any farmer who has not used wheat inputs for these schemes after the planting deadline should return these inputs to the nearest GMB depot by 20 June 2021,” said Minister Masuka.

The Minister further added that the deadline for the planting period has been extended to Tuesday 15 June 2021.

“Following the Government policy thrust to eliminate wheat imports by promoting expanded local wheat production and productivity, the Ministry advises that the deadline for the planting period has been extended to 5 June 2021, with a revised seeding rate of 150 kgs per hectare.

“Farmers are encouraged to make frantic efforts to plant their wheat ahead of this deadline so that the targeted hectarage to ensure our country of national wheat self-sufficiency can be attained from this season onwards in line with the Agriculture and Food Systems Transformation Strategy, the Agriculture Recovery Plan and the National Development Strategy 1 and in pursuit of the noble vision of becoming an empowered and prosperous upper middle income society by 2030,” said the Minister.

The Minister added that his Ministry had deployed monitoring teams throughout the country and satellite aided wheat monitoring scheme has also been activated.