Government To Set Irrigation Schemes In Rural Areas
The government will transform the agricultural sector in rural areas by ensuring that each district has 200 hectors of irrigation.
This was said by the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Resettlement, Dr Anxious Masuka in Harare yesterday.
Minister Masuka was accompanied by the Minister Of Industry and Commerce Hon Sekai Nzenza, Secretary For Industry and Commerce Dr. Mavis Sibanda, Deputy Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Resettlement Hon Vangelis Haritatos and Hon Rajeshkumar Modi, Deputy Minister of Industry and Commerce.
The meeting was an Agro Processing Business Forum Programme which had a theme tagged “Moving the economy up the value chain through enhanced agro-processing.
The Hon Minister of Agriculture said that the government had set a program which was meant to prevail in the wake of the climate change which was affecting the agricultural sector by introducing what he termed the climate proof objective.
Hon Masuka who is also the former Chairman of the University of Zimbabwe Council added that the climate proof was a project which was meant to ensure that the country had a competent food and fiber requirements.
“We must plan for climate change to ensure that this country has sufficient food and fiber requirements even in the midst of climate change. We plan this as a move which will assure industry that the raw materials would be available.” said Masuka.
Hon Masuka reiterated that the government was on a move for the transformation of rural areas agricultural schemes by ensuring that each district had 200 hectors with irrigation and he described the initiative as a transformation which will accelerate the attainment of vision 2030.
“The second aspect of this climate proofing is transformation of again rural areas by ensuring that each district has 200 hectors irrigable and we have called this v30 accelerator, it is a vision 2030 accelerator because it is rural transformation that will accelerate the attainment of vision 2030 so we envisaged 12 000 hectors to be irrigated in the next 3 to 4 years.” he added.
Furthermore, Hon Masuka said that the government was creating a positive environment so that they can feed the growing industry.
“We also are going back to ensure that irrigation schemes are sustainable so that they can feed in a growing industry and with 450 irrigation schemes in various stages of dilapidation, sadly we go back every 4 to 5 years to rehabilitate these schemes.”
Zimbabwe endured devastating droughts in the past two years, which cut maize harvest to 900,000 tones in 2020, half its annual requirements hence the climate proof initiative to be introduced by government will ensure that the southern African country acquire its bread basket status in Africa.
