By Thupeyo Muleya

 277 000 orange trees will be planted in the next three years in the massive citrus production venture at Toppick Investments’ Zhovhe Farm in Beit Bridge. According to the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Danisa Moyo, 9 km by 500 mm pipeline has been constructed to boost the new citrus farming and horticulture business.

He was speaking during the tour of the highly integrated farm by Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water, and Rural Resettlement Minister, Dr Anxious Masuka. Mr Moyo said they were im­porting the citrus propagating material in batches from South Africa.

 “We have completed construction of a pipeline from Zhovhe Dam to boost irrigation development, and we have set our eyes on citrus production, which has high returns on both the local and export markets. The citrus project will cover 1 000 hectares and our plan is to plant 277 000 orange trees by 2023,” he said.

“So far, we have started planting and our target for this year is 88 000. We aim to plant 94 500 next year, and also in 2023.”

Mr Moyo said they were now at the final stage of installing a microjet citrus irrigation system. He said they  were also planting wheat, maize, soya beans, tomatoes, and groundnuts on other parts of the farm. He said since operations began around 2015, they had acquired seventeen irriga­tion pivots to enhance crop production throughout the year.

“We expect to start getting returns from the citrus project in the next five years. Our bigger plan is to also set up a citrus park within the farm, and to construct a 750-kilowatt solar plant to augment power supplies for the farm.”

He said prior to the latest develop­ments, they were specialising in other cash crops, including maize, soya beans, groundnuts, livestock, and fish farming.

So far, Mr Moyo said, they delivered 288 tonnes of wheat to the Grain Mar­keting Board and reserved 100 tonnes for milling at their processing plant.

He added that they had also harvest­ed 375 tonnes of maize from 75 hectares, and that in the past two seasons, they had delivered a total of 1 500 tonnes of wheat and 875 tonnes of maize to the GMB.

 “In terms of livestock, we currently have 1 047 cattle, 453 goats, and 571 sheep. We have also established a complete fish hatchery. This is sup­ported by 24 floating cages, each with a carrying capacity of 100 000 fish. Currently, five cages are stocked with 400 000 fish,” Mr Moyo added.

He said they have a staff comple­ment of over two hundred people from the Beit Bridge District, and more workers will be hired when the citrus project peaks. The company also has a chain of service stations, a funeral parlour and two lodges.