by Staff Reporter

As part of the National Agricultural Recovery Plan, the government continues to spearhead rehabilitation of irrigation schemes countrywide with a view to ensure food security.

Posting on its official twitter handle yesterday, the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement said, “Government spearheads the rehabilitation and revitalisation of 450 irrigation schemes in communal areas, including overhaul of the business model for such schemes in order to ensure viability and sustainability.”

The development comes at a time when the country has been suffering from high vulnerability due to climate change, whilst agriculture is expected to propel the country’s economic development to being an upper middle income economy by 2030.

The country has been experiencing increased frequency of droughts and floods, due to extreme weather patterns characterised by El Nino and La Nina. This has affected the agriculture sector and has reduced production as such, the Government of Zimbabwe is promoting irrigation development as one way of cushioning farmers from the vagaries of climate change.

Cotton Producers and Marketers Association Chairman, Mr Stewart Mubonderi has urged responsible authorities to urgently rehabilitate water sources especially dams, so as to make use of the good rains the country is receiving for future irrigation purposes.

“Irrigation development is a strategic move in agriculture. Which allows all year round production, hence should be taken seriously. Irrigation development also promotes business development in farms, thus increasing employment for youth and women. Thus, responsible authorities should make sure that water sources like dams which are used for irrigation purposes are also rehabilitated for effective water harvesting,” he said

A Zvimba farmer, Mr Tendai Mureza said rehabilitation of irrigation schemes will go a long way in increasing production on farms, which have a potential for producing surplus for export.

“We are happy with our new dispensation, we want to thank our President Emmerson Mnangagwa for putting the wishes of farmers first. We have local dams which have been affected by siltation and some have cracking dam walls, which need rehabilitation. If well managed, irrigation schemes can feed the whole nation remaining with surplus for exports,” he said.

A few months ago government contracted a local company, Maka irrigation to rehabilitate 20 000 small irrigation schemes, the company hit the ground running and within a space of a month over 200 hectares was under irrigation.

Several irrigation schemes and some major water projects such as Marovanyati, Causeway, and Zhove dams have already been completed.