NGOZI, January 7th (ABP) – The maize harvest for the 2025 A cropping season looks set to be very satisfactory in Ngozi province. Despite the late return of the rains at the end of October 2024, cornfields are visibly pleasing to the eye in all communes.
In Karungura, for example, in the commune of Mwumba, almost all the maize fields are already promising. Clearly, the varieties sown have grown very well. Some of the plants have two or even three thorns, and they’re quite large.
Some of the farmers contacted are hoping for a very sustained production that season. Jacques Ndimurigo, a farmer from Karungura, makes no secret of his satisfaction: “I hope that in a month’s time, we’ll have a harvest. Then we’ll be able to wipe the sweat from our brows. Production will be very good, because at that stage everything leads us to believe that nothing will disrupt our fields except extreme weather conditions such as hurricanes or devastating hail”. He thanks the NGO One Acre Fund Tubura, which has helped farmers on his hill with hybrid seeds and organo-mineral fertilizer. He believes that repayment of the advances in inputs offered by that NGO will be very easy.
Thieves in the fields remain a concern throughout the communes. “Network thieves of standing crops have grown stronger in recent years. They come, harvest and sell to the mothers who roast the corn in the small centers. We need to unite our efforts to dismantle them”, said another farmer found in his field in Camugani in the commune and province of Ngozi.
In recent years, Ngozi province has succeeded in intensifying its maize production. With the policy of land pooling, production has multiplied by as much.
The people have already aligned itself with that policy, which consists of ploughing at the same time and sowing, weeding, disinsectisation and harvesting at the same time. That has enabled block cropping of maize, facilitating supervision by agro-pastoral service providers, pest control, proper management of the harvest and its conservation in community stocks. The same experience is operational in the rice sector.