‘Underutilised land should be repossessed’
GOVERNMENT should adopt a policy that allows for the repossession of underutilised farming land, as part of efforts to increase food security, Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development (Cropping) Davis Marapira has said.
Cde Marapira said there was need to revisit the land use in the country to increase food security.
He made the remarks on the sidelines of the launch of Manunure bean innovation platform held in Mutasa Rural District.
The bean innovation platform has 56 farming blocks.
“We have to revisit land use and farmers’ targets because we can’t operate as Government and Ministry of Agriculture without giving farmers certain targets,” he said.
“We should demarcate our natural farming regions, for example farmers in regions one, two and three should be given certain targets for them to produce per hectare.
“You can see even here from this same irrigation scheme, where there is a natural irrigation system, we still have land which is lying idle.
“As Ministry of Agriculture, we should have a policy which allows us to recommend to the Ministry of Lands to repossess land, which is not being utilised.”
Cde Marapira urged farmers to take advantage of the ban on imports of horticultural products and start producing the products seriously.
He said this would help Government reduce the foreign currency crisis in the country.
“We need our farmers to start production of horticultural products,” said Cde Marapira. “This will allow the country to spend the much needed foreign currency on essential things like mechanisation, for instance, tractors and implements and the provision of irrigation equipment.
“This can only happen provided we promote local content. We produce all things which are necessary for our local market considering that Zimbabwe is lucky to have well educated people who can help to superintend and assist our farmers with technology for the production of horticultural products.”
Cde Marapira reminded farmers, who attended the event that new technologies in farming did not translate into improved production and called for a multi-stakeholder approach.
“Availability of new technologies does not necessarily translate into improved production and productivity,” he said. “Therefore, a multi-stakeholder approach is required to up scale the technologies.
“An innovation platform is a physical and well-coordinated forum established to facilitate interaction and learning among stakeholders selected from a commodity chain analysis.”