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Munyaradzi Musiiwa, Midlands Correspondent
GOVERNMENT has expressed confidence that the country will have a bumper harvest in the winter cropping season after it received late rains in February and March, which increased inflows into major water bodies.

Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement Deputy Minister Davis Marapira said Government was now focusing on the winter crop to ensure maximum utilisation of water bodies. He said the overflowing of water bodies was an indication that the country will have a bumper harvest in the winter cropping season that will complement the summer crop.

“According to the report that we have, our dams are filled to capacity. Most of our major water bodies are overflowing. So our focus now is the winter crop. We want to ensure that we utilise our water bodies so that we get optimum yields. I have confidence that we are going to get a bumper harvest this winter,” he said. Deputy Minister Marapira said the country was in the process of capacitating irrigation schemes to ensure maximum utilisation of water and land.

“Ultimately we are targeting 300 000ha of land to be put under irrigation in the next two years. However, at the moment we have programmes that support our irrigation. We recently received 80 centre pivots from Spain and we are expecting 50 more soon. Spain will in the near future deliver 1000 more centre pivots. We have started installing this equipment to ensure that we maximise land usage,” he said.

The Deputy Minister said Government was now prioritising horticulture as there were growing demands for horticultural and floricultural products in Europe. He said Government had also embarked on a citrus plants project where it will be putting up plantations across the country.

“We are establishing citrus plantations across the country. In the Midlands we have identified Manyuchi Dam at the border of Mberengwa and Mwenezi where we want to put a citrus plantation. We are now shifting our focus to horticulture. We want to put avocado plantations, macadamia nuts, oranges, fibreless mangoes and lemons among other fruits. There is growing demand for these products in Europe,” he said.