By Dorcas Rumano
While delivering his State Of the Nation Address (SONA) and officially opening the second session of the 9th Parliament today, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said Government had set aside funds for production of food crops, in trying to alleviate food shortages that were caused by El Nino induced drought.
He said, “The sustained turnaround of our economy hinges on focused support for the productive sectors especially in agriculture, mining and manufacturing.
“The 2018 /2019 drought has seen our agriculture sector registering a negative growth rate. Going forward, Government has set aside ZWL$1.8 billion towards the production of strategic crops, such as maize, soya beans and cotton.”
He added that, “A total of ZWL$968 million will augment the ZWL$2.8 billion put forward by banks and the private sector to support the Command Agriculture Programme.”
The President went on to say that only those farmers with a proven track record of delivering their harvest to the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) will be supported under the Command Agriculture programme.
President Mnangagwa went on to say that modalities for duty-free importation of fertilizers and other agricultural commodities are underway through various facilities for both communal and commercial farmers.
“To render inputs more affordable to our farmers, Government is putting in place measures to facilitate the duty free importation of fertilisers, targeted electricity subsidies and the local manufacturing of fertilisers, including the full exploitation of phosphates from Dorowa,” he said.
President Mnangagwa said in order to strengthen the resilience to climate change; Government was encouraging communal, A1 and A2 farmers to grow traditional grains. He also noted that the implementation of the irrigation development programme will also be accelerated.
Zimbabwe’s annual maize consumption is rated at 1.8 million tonnes which was beyond the reach of local farmers in the last farming season as a result of drought.
According to the weather forecasts by the Zimbabwe Meteorological Services Department, the country will receive normal to below normal rainfall for 2019/2020 farming season.
