NGOZI, November 18th (ABP) – Farming leaders in Ngozi urge rice farmers to start preparing for the 2024-2025 rice growing season.
According to the Director of the Provincial Bureau of Environment, Agriculture and Livestock, Émile Kubwimana, the time to prepare rice germinators has already arrived.
In the swamps, since November 15, rice farmers can start setting up strips to germinate rice so as not to delay the transplanting scheduled for early December.
Thus, according to this official, almost all of the swamps that hosted the summer season crops are almost ready. Maize crops are reaching maturity, except in certain localities. Where these plants are not ready to be harvested, he indicated, they can still wait one or two weeks to start plowing. Mr. Kubwimana asks agricultural supervisors, namely agronomists, agricultural instructors and grassroots administration, to raise awareness among the people for the rice growing season.
In the swamps, irrigation infrastructure needs to be cleaned so that water can reach all the rice plots. It is therefore necessary to prepare because plowing must be done at the same time for all rice farmers, especially in the developed swamp blocs.
Transplanting, fertilizing and disinfestation must also be done at the same time. This is for an agricultural intensification policy that has already proven itself in previous years in terms of increased production.
The province of Ngozi is already among the largest producers of rice, especially in the Nyacijima 1 and 2 swamps straddling the Ngozi and Gashikanwa districts, Namugoyi in Tangara and Kiremba districts, Nyamuswaga between Tangara, Gashikanwa and Ruhororo and Narupfu in Marangara district.
Those swamps were developed by the PRODEFI and PRODEMA Projects and are currently being capitalized by rice cooperatives after the closure of those programmes in 2021. Many varieties are grown there. Some have even proven to be much more profitable, reaching 6 tonnes per hectare.