The Government’s concerted support to the agriculture sector is not political gimmicking but an apolitical economic move meant to foster productivity and growth in this key economic pillar, Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development Minister Dr Anxious Masuka has said.
Minister Masuka’s remarks recently come at a time when Government, under the leadership of President Mnangagwa, has taken an active role in capacitating farmers, both smallholder and commercial, in a bid to grow the sector’s contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The support has been cross cutting, covering all facets of the value chain including extension support, crop protection, veterinary services, supply of agricultural inputs and mechanisation.
The Presidential input support scheme, an ongoing mechanisation programme that is targeting to bring in 3 000 tractors from Belarus -with up to a thousand already in the country – the importation of up to 35 000 two-wheel tractors for small holder farmers, the Pfumvudza/Intwasa scheme – which has now been extended to 3, 5 million households from 2, 3 million – are some of the interventions by Government.
Some elements however, continue to criticize these well-meaning interventions whose impact on the groundcannot be deemed to be political grandstanding.
The criticism, said Minister Masuka, was unfounded.
Minister Masuka said if the President’s support to farmers was political then Government would have introduced the programmes in 2023.
Rather, he said, Government was on a drive to foster rural development through support to the biggest economic activity in rural Zimbabwe and was also targeting to achieve national food self-sufficiency and grow agriculture exports.
Agriculture is being primed to achieve a US$8,2 billion industry by 2025 and will be a key pillar, alongside mining, tourism and manufacturing on which Zimbabwe is targeting upper middle income status by 2030.
“What we want to do in the food security sector is that first we want to assure the nation of perennial food security and that is what we have now done with wheat,” said Minister Masuka.
“These are not political machinations, if it was political, we would have launched in 2023 just ahead of elections. The President would have started Vision 2030 just before elections if that was the case.
“When he (the President) came into office at the advent of the Second Republic, his vision was for a prosperous and empowered upper middle-income society. The context is that Zimbabwe is an agro-based economy; it is agriculture that must change the circumstances of Zimbabweans.
“So that is 9,2 million Zimbabweans in rural areas who daily eke out their living from subsistence farming that must be transformed so that they become economic participants and not economic spectators.
“So this is not about politics. This is about rural transformation. Agricultural development will lead to industrialisation, rural industrialisation will lead to rural development and that rural development will catalyse the attainment of vision 2030,” said Minister Masuka.
Going forward, Minister Masuka said the work of the second republic will soon become apparent and if anything, Government will continue with these support structures.
There is also going to be a systematic way in which things will be done moving from subsistence to a more commercial way of doing business because agriculture is a big business.
“You will see aggregation because we are putting horticulture in every village, we are giving goats, we are resuscitating the livestock sector, we have gone back to the CSC (Cold Storage Commission) markets that we used to have in the communal areas,” said Minister Masuka.
“So, we are creating these aggregation centres, we are creating value addition and beneficiation and we are beginning to transform the country household by household, enterprise by enterprise and that is not politics,” said Minister Masuka. – The Herald
