Smallholder farmers here are concerned with intermittent power cuts and high electricity bills they owe the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC), which is likely to affect both the winter wheat and maize crops.

The farmers said yesterday that they have started counting their losses as their crops are now wilting due to lack of irrigation water.

“Irrigation farming requires electricity to pump water from the dam into canals, but we spend the whole day without electricity and working in the middle of the night (when there is electricity) makes our lives difficult,” said Mr Takawira Magara, a farmer at Nyatare irrigation scheme.

Mrs Juliet Moyo said inflated power bills were a headache for most plot holders.

“Every month, we collectively pay up to $1000 and that is affecting us as we are not producing much due to crop failure linked to power outages.

“Recently, we incurred huge losses after our sugar beans crop wilted because of irrigation water shortages,” said Mrs Moyo.

Zaka’s head of Agriculture Extension Services, Mr Kennedy Pedzisai said recurrent power cuts were an impediment to irrigation based farming in the area, especially at Mabvute and Nyatare projects.

“The plot holders there have continually expressed concern over the sudden increase in daily load shedding schedules which forces them to work in the middle of the night.State media