Zimbabwe: Tobacco Farmers Offered Free Float Bed Technology Lessons

Source from:  The Herald 06/22/2009

Harare - TOBACCO farmers selling their crop at the floors should take advantage of their presence in Harare to visit the Tobacco Research Board and receive free lessons on float bed technology, divisional co-ordinator for crop production Mr Ezekia Svotwa has said. TRB is offering free services to tobacco growers in line with the global campaign to phase out the use of methyl bromide, an ozone-depleting chemical used for nematode control in conventional seedbed preparation. The use of float trays promotes full utilisation of space as seedlings produced on 20 square metres of land under float trays can cover a hectare while the conventional method needs 100 square metres of seedbeds to cover the same size of land. "Seedbed preparations for the next irrigated tobacco crop started on June 1 and will stretch to the end of the month hence the need for farmers to act resourcefully." "We want farmers to switch smoothly to the use of the float bed so that they save the environment, use less chemicals, capital and labour during the production process but reap big," said Mr Svotwa. Besides protecting the environment, float tray technology promotes self reliance as the farmers produce own seedlings, which helps curtail costs. "Some production losses have often resulted from farmers' failure to secure seedlings in time as there is too much pressure on the limited stocks produced by a few farmers who later sell their surplus. "This is costly to the farmer because his planting time and hectarage are decided by factors beyond his control," he said. About 300 000 float trays out of the initial 700 000 meant to be distributed to farmers under the TRB initiative now remain at the station for further distribution to needy farmers, he explained. He paid tribute to the farmers who are using their earnings to boost their mechanisation capacity, improve infrastructure and starting preparations for fresh projects. Mr Svotwa however decried the recent trend by some farmers to go reveling after receiving payments, which has seen some of them losing the money to thieves or other unfortunate and less benefiting circumstances. Enditem