Many Mkwasine sugarcane farmers are destroying soils on
their farms by spending too much money on their lavish lifestyles and investing
little in land conservation.
This is according Great Zimbabwe University, Dean of the
Faculty of Agriculture Soil and Plant Sciences, Professor Munashe Shoko who was
speaking at a workshop organized by the Zimbabwe Sugarcane Development
Association (ZSDA).
He said that over 1 000 hectares of sugarcane plantations
in Mkwasine will no longer grow sugarcane in a short time because of sodicity
and salinity which is caused by poor drainage system and poor farming methods.
New indigenous sugarcane farmers are known for their
expensive tastes, driving state of the art vehicles and living large but Shoko
said this is a stark contrast with what obtains in their sugarcane fields which
are slowly dying.
Mkwasine farmers settled under empowerment programmes are
known for their poor maintenance of fields as compared to Hippo Valley and
Triangle. As a result Mkwasine has lost its glamour as the Little England of
the Lowveld before the land grabs in the year 2000.
Speaking to The Mirror on the sidelines of the workshop,
Shoko said it is unfortunate that due to poor farming methods and reluctance by
some farmers to invest back on the land, many fields are getting exhausted and
it will be very expensive to resuscitate them.
He said farmers must continue to seek guidance from
specialists like Tongaat employees on how to maintain their drainage system.
“Over-irrigation without a proper drainage system raises
the water table. Cane does not require water as you think yourself, so what
happens is when you over-apply water, it raises the water table such that when
you apply fertiliser it fails to go down, that creates a whitish substance
which is called sodium.
“Sodic soils are characterised by a disproportionately high
concentration of sodium in their cation exchange complex or containing an
exchangeable percentage which is greater than 15%. Now the problem is when it
happens like this, it means that the land is a complete write-off.
“The farmer needs to quickly do what we call
rehabilitation. He has to work on his drainage system to make sure that the
water that is seated here drains to somewhere. This is very costly, because the
farmer has to apply lots and lots of gypsum.
“I am so disappointed, because this is not a loss only to
the sugar industry, but to the nation at large. I don’t know why it is like
this. I think these farmers should have continued working with officials from
Tongaat to get advice on how they should maintain their drains before
they
left,” said Shoko.
A senior sugarcane farmer who requested anonymity told The
Mirror that there is a big gap in farming methods between outgrower farmers in
Hippo Valley and Mkwasine. He said those in Mkwasine concentrate more on buying
expensive cars while they stay in compounds left by Tongaat Hulett but those in
Hippo and Triangle concentrate more on proper and competitive farming and most
of them built their own houses.Masvingo Mirror
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