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Sukulwenkosi Dube Plumtree Correspondent
THE country’s 10 provinces have each been allocated 60 tractors for this year’s farming season under Brazil’s More Food For Africa Programme.

Zimbabwe recently received agricultural equipment worth $38,6 million under the scheme.

The consignment is part of government efforts to achieve targets set under the Zim-Asset’s food security and nutrition cluster.

Vice-President Phelekezela Mphoko told heads of government departments on Wednesday in Makorokoro area in Mangwe District that the tractors were going to be dispatched to the districts soon.

He advised government departments involved in the distribution process to ensure that the tractors reached their intended destinations.

“The tractors are there and what is left is for them to be distributed. Each province will be getting 60 tractors in this first phase which will then be distributed to districts. These tractors were purchased so that people can plough their fields on time this farming season.

“As government, we expect these tractors to serve their desired purpose. Let there be transparency in the use of all these 60 tractors. These tractors are not for the use of officials but the community,” said VP Mphoko.

The VP said the tractors will help fight poverty in villages.

He said provinces will be allocated more tractors under the second and third phases of the programme.

Minister of State for Provincial Affairs in Matabeleland South, Cde Abednico Ncube, said his office would closely supervise the use of the tractors in the province.

“They’ll be distributed evenly among the province’s seven districts. There’s also a need for urgent food assistance in all districts. The registration process for vulnerable households has been completed and now people are eagerly waiting for the help to arrive,” he said.

Cde Ncube said the situation was also affecting the state of livestock especially in areas close to the border which are short of grazing land.

The agricultural equipment, which includes tractors, fertiliser spreaders, and irrigation kits, is the first of three tranches coming under a $98 million loan facility secured from Brazil by President Mugabe.

Beneficiaries under phase one will be smallholder farmers who benefited from the land reform programme.

President Mugabe, while commissioning the equipment, described the programme as one of the many ways of defeating the illegal economic sanctions imposed on the country by the West.

He said the only way Zimbabweans could shame Western countries’ exploitative tactics was to be productive on their farms.

Under the More Food For Africa programme, the loan will be paid by each beneficiary country over 15 years at an interest rate of two percent per annum. In Zimbabwe, Agribank are the administrators of the loan.