Water Lodging Kills Gokwe Farmers’ Bump Harvest Hopes 

Gokwe have been hit by excessive rains that have resulted in the floods and water lodging thereby destroying farmers’ hope of a good harvest.

Farmers in the parts of Gokwe Nembudziya’s Nenyunka Chieftainship revealed to My Gokwe Media that they are destined for a replant if these rains persists.

“So far crops are wilting but surprisingly the weeds are growing. We can’t do weeding nor cultivation because there is water all over the field. I’m sure soon nothing will be left in the fields and people will be replanting,” said Mlalazi.

It is raining day and night since 23 December and all farming operations have come to halt. The lowest record is 40mm and still more rains are expected.

People in this community thought the rains will give them time to reconstruct their dam, weed and do cultivation but it seems nothing is coming out from this dream.

Worse to their dream, Cyclone Chalane’s effects are being experienced in the area and villagers are already lamenting.

“Mvura iri kutoita kusinina munhovoro dzedu imi zvekuti neCyclone iri kutaurwa iyi hapana chobuda. (Due to water lodging, fields are still oozing and now that there is Cyclone Chalane, will not harvest anything.)”

The most affected crop is Cotton as it grows at slow pace as compared to maize, it is either shading leaves and wilting or invisible under the water.

Cotton farmers are already on the look out of Ammonium Nitrate (AN) referred to as Top in layman language for top dressing so that the crop can thrive.

“We had come to Cottco (The Cotton Company of Zimbabwe) to seek for top so that we can help our crops in this situation”, said Tembo who is one of the farmers.

The only prayer for these farmers is that this cyclone should not hit hard the area.