Maravi

(HERALD) Noczim contracts 300 small-scale jatropha growers

Noczim contracts 300 small-scale jatropha growers
Business Reporter

THE National Oil Company of Zimbabwe has contracted about 300 small-scale jatropha growers and provided them with over 30 million seedlings to grow 1000ha of the crop during the past two seasons.

Spokesperson of the company Ms Zvikomborero Sibanda said communal and model A1 farmers had taken over 99 percent of all produced seedlings during the past two seasons, which most of them grew as hedges.

"Although management of such hedges is generally poor, of the 23 million seedlings distributed for planting last season, 99 percent was taken by small-scale communal and resettled farmers.

"Large-scale commercial and A2 farmers have taken just under one percent of all produced jatropha seedlings during the past two seasons," Ms Sibanda said.

She said the company had registered over 2 000 farmers who had taken between 100 and 5 000 jatropha plants for growing.

"We have also registered some 500 communities that have taken between 15 000 and 400 000 plants for local level distribution and planting.

"The above three categories have taken delivery of about 30 million jatropha plants during the past two years (largely unverified) even though a separate sampling based verification has been under way during the last half of the year to establish levels of planting and survival under small-scale production."

Ms Sibanda said Noczim had decentralised offices to all provinces to work with key stakeholders in promoting jatropha as one of the initiatives to promote production of the oil seed.

The company had also set up mobile jatropha seed and cuttings purchase teams in areas with significant amounts of jatropha hedges countrywide. The seed and cuttings are used to set up jatropha nurseries that then provide planting materials during the rain season.

"We have contracted a network of jatropha nurseries in every province to provide ready sources of planting materials to all interested farmers. Any farmer who wants to grow jatropha in Zimbabwe can access bare root jatropha planting materials from such nurseries at no cost," she said.

Planting is done between December and March. Early planted jatropha usually grows best.

Additionally, Noczim has also mobilised key institutions to assist in providing technical support and planting materials to interested farmers.

Mobile teams are available in every province and these deliver materials for planting to interested farmers during the planting season.

To add onto this, Noczim has set up a jatropha tillage support team to provide land preparation support to large-scale jatropha farmers.

"Mobile jatropha tillage teams are busy at the moment preparing land for planting during the forthcoming 2009/10 planting season.

"Any farmer with over five hectares (although preference is often given to larger hectarages) can be assisted."

Ms Sibanda said her company was setting up working relationships with national institutions involved in jatropha research on propagation and agronomy to improve on growth and yield performance.

She explained that there had been a huge response from farmers over the past two seasons even though that keen interest had been dampened by the prohibitive costs of land preparation and labour for jatropha planting.

Ms Sibanda said the delicate and stringent management requirements of the crop had slightly reduced adoption of jatropha by some farmers although Noczim had provided tillage support on most farms where jatropha was adopted.

"Noczim has since improved on this by setting up a dedicated jatropha tillage team of 12 tractors to prepare up to 10 000ha of land per annum when fully operational.

"This will go a long way in the establishment of large scale plantations. About a thousand hectares have already been prepared for planting during the forthcoming planting season," said Ms Sibanda.

She however lamented the fact that jatropha hedges and plantations were generally poorly managed.

This was especially true for the last planting season when farmers had serious labour constraints at a time when the economy was under hyperinflation leading to the dollarisation.

"Given that jatropha growing is generally a long term enterprise, with optimal returns realised after five years, farmers prioritise resource allocation to short term yielding crops.

"The jatropha programme will have better impact if a proper plantation establishment package is made available to farmers focusing on support for quality planting materials, land preparation and labour for planting and management of the jatropha plantations."

Fertilizer, agro-chemical support and other incentives in the form of a good support price for jatropha during these plantation establishment years are also vital for jatropha growers, said Ms Sibanda.

Labels: BIOFUELS, JATROPHA, NOCZIM, PARASTATALS

posted by MrK @ 7:18 PM