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Elita Chikwati Agriculture Reporter—
THE government supports the production of quail birds (izigwaca in isiNdebele or zvihuta in Shona) as this improves nutrition and livelihoods of people, Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa has said. He said the government had never banned the production of the quails but was against poaching of the wild birds and eggs.

Responding to questions in Parliament on the reported banning of the production of quail birds on Wednesday, Mnangagwa said people had misunderstood Environment, Water and Cimate Minister, Oppah Muchinguri Kashiri.

“When the government has put in place legislation on something which is or is not permissible, there’s a procedure that is followed. When the government bans something, it’s gazetted. There’s no policy that’s publicised only through the media, government policy is in written form,” he told MPs.

“There’re some who were moving around the wild taking away quail birds’ eggs, we’re not happy about that. It’s illegal. There’s a way of rearing quail birds commercially, carrying out your quail birds project and selling to hotels, but we don’t allow people to poach quail birds in the national parks.”

Mngangagwa said there was no policy that had been put in place to ban projects on quail birds. “The birds are very delicious, we enjoy the quail birds,” he said. Officiating at a livestock field day at Mountain Home Farm in Mazowe yesterday, Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Deputy Minister responsible for livestock, Paddy Zhanda, said domestication of quail birds was under the division of the Livestock Production Department.

He said the government supported production of the birds and this was in line with the national economic blueprint, ZimAsset. “We encourage production of the quail birds as this boosts nutrition and also improves livelihoods. Zimbabwe has been lagging behind other countries that are producing the birds. The birds are good in terms of nutrition,” he said.

There had been an outcry in the country as a result of the supposed ban of the quail birds.

The birds became popular with some people claiming that they had medicinal properties, which Muchinguri said was thoroughly misleading. The supposed ban made the birds popular especially on social media where the bulk of the jokes that have been circulating this week concerned the quail birds.