by Ashley Kondo
Zimbabwe’s agriculture sector is set to experience a major boost as Government moves to implement a raft of economic reforms aimed at resuscitating the country’s economy.
This was revealed by President Emmerson Mnangagwa during an interview with the Cable News Network (CNN) on the sidelines of the ongoing 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York City, United States of America.
President Mnangagwa said his administration would prioritise and invest in agricultural infrastructure to maximise productivity given that the country’s economy was agro-based.
“Primarily, our economy is agricultural… we need to modernise our agriculture, we need to industrialise our agriculture, we need to mechanise our agriculture,” he said.
President Mnangagwa indicated that Government would ensure food security in the country by intensifying irrigation in order to mitigate against possible drought given the effects of climate change.
“The issue of climate change, we are making sure that we have enough water bodies in the country so that we can have irrigation for a guaranteed number of hectares.
“Whether there is a drought or no drought, we have irrigation in the country to produce the grain to feed our people and obviously we target and project surplus,” explained President Mnangagwa.
Zimbabwe’s agriculture sector has continued to be the lifeline of the country’s economy over the years with tobacco being one of the top foreign currency earners for the country.
A couple of years back, Government introduced the Command Agriculture Programme which successfully managed to boost the country’s maize strategic reserves.
The programme’s scope has since been expanded to include livestock with optimism that this would also amplify livestock production for export to the European markets.
