Visiting Mashonaland West Provincial Affairs Minister, Mary Mliswa-Chikoka, has called for support to the Uvhungu Vhungu demonstration field to produce the desired results.

Zimbabwe's Mashonaland West Province signed a five-year memorandum of understanding with the Kavango East Region, which seeks to ensure food security for both parties.

Mliswa-Chikoka is leading a delegation from that province to assess the progress of the implementation of the MoU at the participating sites.

The Uvhungu Vhungu Green Scheme Project was selected to host the 20-hectare demonstration field where drought-resistant maize seeds were tested.

Mliswa-Chikoka wants to see farmers benefit from the demonstration field in terms of skills and good farming practices.

"The purpose of the project was to give a sort of education on agriculture to our youth as well as women and farmers here because what we did not want is the situation where people have to travel all the way to Zimbabwe because we said let's also experience the soil."

The Uvhungu Vhungu Green Scheme Manager, Floris Smith, told Mliswa-Chikoka and her delegation that the farm experienced several challenges, which affected the demo fields as well.

Water supply and a shortage of equipment for applying fertilizers were among some of the challenges Smith said affected production.

He said the maize seeds procured from Zimbabwe-based Seedco were of good quality and could have produced a good harvest.

Smith wants to test more seed varieties and crops that might perform better in the soil, including sunflowers.

The delegation also visited Mashare Blueberry Farm and the Rundu Vocational Training Institute's Agri-Tech Training Farm.