First Lady appointed Agric-for-She patron
THE Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development has appointed First Lady Dr Auxillia Mnangagwa patron for Agriculture-for-She, a novel initiative aimed at empowering women through farming.
The First Lady is a farmer in her own right and has also been actively involved in farming projects through her Angel of Hope Foundation where she has been assisting the elderly, those with disabilities, former ladies of the night, youths and orphans look after themselves through the use of their hands.
She has also been working with spouses of traditional chiefs in growing traditional grains and helped previously marginalised communities like the San in Plumtree and the Doma in Kanyemba set up nutrition gardens and castor bean production.
The mother of the nation also helped acquire Portugal Farm in Mashonaland East Province for use by various groups as she promotes agriculture.
The farming project similar to that at Portugal farm was introduced to all the country’s provinces where it became a success.
Announcing the appointment, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry Dr John Basera described the role as demanding since it will cover Irrigation-Development-for She, Command Agriculture-for-She, Mechanisation-for She, Pfumvudza, horticulture and livestock.
“We want to mainstream women and ensure they are actively involved in farming countrywide. At the United Nations there are Sustainable Development Goals which we want to achieve by 2025. The first SDG is to end hunger, number two is to end poverty globally. SDG 5 speaks on the need for gender equality. They are our mothers, they are our wives, they are our sisters and our leaders in some of our workplaces. We love them because they do constitute a significant proportion of our population and there is no economy which may grow without a bigger proportion of this population.
“Vision 2030 is speaking about empowering household upon household to reach the upper middle class. Vision 2030 simply means the presence of wealth at households by 2030. With such initiatives we believe we shall reach the target much faster and much earlier because women make up 52 percent of the population so we can’t succeed without them,” he said.
He added, “We discovered that to
transform our farming, we need such initiatives and guidance from you as you move with women. Women should be able to appreciate where we are and where we intend to go in the agriculture space. Women are a very important demographically. They are a very important subsector in the agricultural economy and in our overall economy and for inclusive economic growth.
“Thank you for your wise guidance Amai and as a ministry, we are happy to
appoint you as patron for Agric-for-She.”
Agriculture-for-She will address such issues as production across all agricultural sectors, post-harvest processing techniques, value addition and storage, increased social and rural and urban agricultural infrastructure.
It is also expected to improve access to finance and financial literacy training, access to inputs and establish links to established agricultural markets.