Midlands welcomes First Lady’s farming projects
NEWLY-APPOINTED Agric4She patron First Lady Dr Auxillia Mnangagwa arrived to a thunderous welcome by thousands of women in the Midlands Province yesterday as she launched her drive to empower women through farming projects, including poultry rearing.
The Agric4She programme will be taken to all the country’s 10 provinces as the First Lady aims at ensuring that women are actively involved in farming countrywide.
Midlands Province was her second stop after the initial launch in Harare a few days ago.
The colourful programme was befittingly launched at a Pfumvudza demonstration plot, showing Dr Mnangagwa’s zeal to ensure beneficiaries achieved high yields to boost livelihoods.
She led the women in planting maize seed on the plot for the benefit of the community.
Inputs distributed by Amai Mnangagwa under the programme yesterday included 40 tonnes compound D fertiliser, 30 tonnes Ammonium Nitrate, 25 tonnes maize seed, 15 tonnes sorghum, 25 tonnes sunflower and a chemical called Demise for armyworm control.
In her remarks, Dr Mnangagwa said she felt encouraged by the women who turned up in huge numbers for the project launch.
“I am happy that you have come in your numbers madzimai. This post of being Agric4She patron was given to me by the Ministry of Agriculture and I gladly accepted because I know that as women we are hard workers,” she said.
“Vanamai, here is an opportunity to end gossip and sitting idly. I have come to give you dignity and mould you into respectable hard working women who shun gossiping. Working together brings about unity, friendliness and the ability to assist each other in times of challenges.
“Agric4She has brought a lot, let’s embrace the programme. No one should be left behind. My programmes are all-encompassing. I invite the elderly and the newly-married. To ladies of the night, I urge you to quit the oldest profession so that we earn clean money.
“My sons, let us shun drugs like mutoriro (crystal meth) and spend time in our plots with our mothers using our hands and staying away from mischief.”
The First Lady said she was honoured to launch the Agric4She Programme alongside the donation of broiler day old chicks for vulnerable groups to kickstart a poultry project.
She told the gathering how the chicken rearing programme was born.
“I hosted a fundraising dinner with my Angel of Hope Foundation Partners seeking help to get something to give the less fortunate countrywide.
“Gain Cash and Carry came aboard among other partners which gave birth to this broiler chicks project. But madzimai when you get money through this project, please stop behaving like cocks, telling your spouses what to do. Let’s remain submissive to our husbands, we do not want violence in the homes,” she said.
As the name suggests, Dr Mnangagwa said, the Agric4She Programme was targeted towards the empowerment of women through agriculture.
“The programme is in partnership with our development partner, the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development and will include the provision of agricultural land, inputs and skills training to enhance agricultural production through a targeted approach,” the First Lady said.
“It is thus a deliberate strategy to target the women as they constitute the majority in our population and also they are the anchors of our families and nation at large. This without doubt will contribute immensely to domestic and national food security.”
Women participation in agriculture, she said, will ensure that agriculture plays a pivotal role in the socio-economic agenda and the eventual achievement of Vision 2030.