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Minister Joseph Made

The Government has announced that preparations for the 2016-17 summer cropping season have started and that it has come up with programmes to boost national food security in order to reduce grain imports.

The programmes include the production of 200,000 hectares of maize under irrigation, cotton production support and the Presidential Inputs Support Scheme to benefit 1.6 million households. Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister Dr Joseph Made said maize to be produced under irrigation was meant to drastically reduce grain imports.

He said the Government was at an advanced stage to implement the programme with the assistance from the Food and Nutrition Committee chaired by Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa. He said under the scheme, the Government has identified the inputs required by farmers which include seed, fertilisers and lime in some areas.

Minister Made said the Government was happy that all seed houses had indicated that they are ready to supply the required seed for this specialised programme.

He said the Government was at the moment identifying farmers that will participate in the programme and will soon meet fertiliser companies who in the past have experienced challenges in supplying adequate fertilisers. Minister Made said for the programme to succeed, irrigation schemes should be operating at full throttle hence the need to fund the rehabilitation of irrigation schemes in different parts of the country.

Dr Made said farmers involved in maize production under this specialised programme will sign contracts stipulating the expected yields. More than 300,000 families have benefited from the Government’s land reform programme since the launch of the fast-track land reform programme in 2,000.

The majority of the land reform programme beneficiaries are the once marginalised black people who are now proud owners of pieces of land in prime farming areas which used to be a preserve for the whites.

The Government embarked on the land reform programme to correct the skewed land ownership which favoured the whites. Most blacks before independence were confined to barren land while the few whites were settled in fertile land across the country. What was however surprising was that despite cultivating the poor soils, the black farmers produced about 80 percent of the country’s food requirements.

The Government soon after independence embarked on the land reform programme meant to correct the past imbalances in the ownership of this finite resource. Now that the Government has put in place programmes to empower the new farmers, there is no excuse for the country to continue importing grain especially maize.

The farmers should not just produce for national consumption but surplus for export so that the country can regain its status of being the breadbasket for Southern Africa region.

Experience has shown that farmers who prepare for the planting season on time usually realise good yields and it is pleasing to note that the Government has already started preparing for the summer cropping season which usually starts between October and November.

In the past inputs under the Presidential Inputs Support Scheme have been distributed as late as January and in some extreme cases February. Late delivery of inputs adversely affects production as in some cases it will be too late to use the inputs that season.

It is our fervent hope that this year all the inputs will be delivered to farmers before the onset of the rains so that they can be put to good use. Fertiliser companies should be working on the national deficit so that they import the shortfall before the onset of the rains to avoid a situation whereby the country runs out of fertilisers as has happened in the past.

Farmers on their part should have started preparing the land for planting as well as mobilising the required inputs so that they are able to plant with the early rains.

This coming summer cropping season should be a turning point for our agricultural production given the resources being mobilised and the programmes lined up to increase production.