Sun, 03 Sep 2017 12:39:09 +0000
BY CHIKUMBI KATEBE
GOVERNMENT has established agriculture nurseries to encourage cashew nut growing in Western Province.
Sioma district agricultural coordinator (DACO) Belvin Muntanga has disclosed that the Ministry of Agriculture has established cashew nut tree nurseries to help provide farmers with seedlings for planting.
Mr Muntanga said the seedlings nurseries already started included Sioma, Shang’ombo and Namushakendi among others.
He said Government’s plan for cashew nut growers in Western province was that each farmer was to receive 100 buds for replanting while any addition could be bought by the individual farmers.
“Sioma is one of the target catchments for cashew nut development to help increase income levels at households and national economy.
“This is a five year programme to grow seedlings for 1,200 farmers in the 2017/2018 agriculture season but with an ultimate objective of upto 530,000 trees for Sioma alone,” he said.
He explained that with a life expectancy of 40years of productivity per tree, farmers were expected to begin harvesting within 3 years of planting, but that yields should increase to its maximum after 10 years.
He was, however, hopeful that with the farmers’ positive response, the restocking exercise should also help revamp the tree population in the region which has not been spared from the illicit timber harvesting that has hit the country lately.
He disclosed that some local timber traders have connived with foreign traders in acquiring licenses which they have used to illegally harvest high value timber at very low prices.
He said with the cashew nut trees, farmers would have no reason to cut them down when they understood the value of the crop.
Local timber traders have been accused of aiding foreign traders by exploiting local suppliers for as low at K20 per log of wood from a tree that took over 100 years to be where it was.
“It is unfortunate that the province is being robbed of huge revenue due to illegal timber businesses,” he said.
