Government duty-bound on land use

GOVERNMENT has a duty to ensure security of tenure on land holdings, including developing sustainable methods to achieve household and national food and nutrition security through enhanced agricultural investment.

Mashonaland East Minister of State for Provincial Affairs, Retired Brigadier-General Ambrose Mutinhiri said this at the official opening of the 77th Zimbabwe Farmers Union (ZFU) Congress in Marondera yesterday.

Minister Mutinhiri said since Zimbabwe had managed to empower the black majority through redistributing the land, the new thrust should be biased towards consolidating the gains that had been made thus far.

He also noted that Government was duty-bound to accord farmers the right to land holdings as this was likely to unlock additional investments and conveniently allow access to bank loans.

“The congress theme, “Tenure Security for Sustainable Agricultural Transformation”, brings to the fore the importance of land tenure security and the need for crafting and executing sustainable plans to effectively drive the sector out of the current dire situation, and achieve household and national food and nutrition security through enhanced agricultural investment, which, in turn, will inevitably result in agricultural transformation.

“These efforts will complement Zim-Asset and the 10-Point Plan, both of which seek to grow the productive base for the manufacturing sector and increase export earnings.

“The public and private sectors are partners in development and together we can collectively grow our economy through the agricultural sector,” he said.

Minister Mutinhiri applauded ZFU for its continued efforts in forging partnerships with stakeholders in the agricultural sector.

“The theme speaks very well to various efforts being made by Government through Command Agriculture programme and related agricultural investments programme such as irrigation and the More Food programme aimed at empowering farmers and creating food self-sufficiency,” he said.