Food is the most basic human right, and it is laudable that the Government of Zimbabwe is determined to ensure that everyone enjoys that constitutional and universal right.
With this drought across Southern Africa that has been caused by El-Nino, our people are obviously going to need assistance.
According to the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee, an estimated 1,5 million rural Zimbabweans will be food insecure this year. Others have put that figure at three million. Either way, it is unacceptable that any Zimbabwean go hungry through no fault of his/her own.
It has been reported that the levels of vulnerability and acute food insecurity in Zimbabwe are such that an estimated $1,5 billion is required to mitigate the drought’s effects and to build capacity to avert such an extent of hunger in future.
This situation has necessitated large-scale humanitarian food relief operations all across the country.
As such, the President, his deputies and several other Government officials have on several occasions assured Zimbabweans in drought-stricken areas that no one is going to starve as food relief will be availed to cushion them.
These have not been empty promises. First Lady Amai Grace Mugabe has made it her business to distribute food aid in vulnerable areas.
Only last week, she left many smiling faces in Chivi because of her efforts. As reported elsewhere in this publication, Cabinet has approved a US$200 million National Schools Feeding Scheme to feed four million pupils when the second term of 2016 opens. Our Government has to be commended for stepping up to the task. Several non-governmental organisations have also come to the party and have been offering food aid.
Our gratitude towards the NGOs for their efforts can never be over stated, as long as they stick to their mandate and do not turn into pseudo-political parties and their aid does not come with conditions.
This is something we must be conscious of as we inch towards the 2018 harmonised elections.
But while these measures address immediate food security needs, vulnerable communities should be assisted to build resilience to climatic shocks and eliminate the need for food assistance in the long-term.
We cannot be beggars for life.
As Zimbabweans, we are definitely not a lazy lot. While this season we have been hamstrung by the El nino phenomena, how do we explain the fact that humanitarian organisations have been coming every single year to our rural areas with food aid?
How do we, as a sovereign and proud nation, allow our people to look forward to free handouts, year in year out? Zimbabwe is well-endowed with a lot of water bodies that have been lying idle for years, with some even flooding while the communities around them wait for food aid.
If the trends in recent years are anything to go by, weather patterns have shifted for the worst and we cannot afford to continue relying on rain-fed agriculture. We do not need to look any further than irrigation and mechanisation to start addressing this matter. We need to secure our livelihoods. After all, agriculture is the backbone of Zimbabwe’s economy.
The ZimStat 2013 report told us that 67 percent of the Zimbabwean population lives in rural areas.
Most of these people derive their livelihoods from agriculture and other related economic activities.
Moreover, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation says this sector provides employment and income to 60 to 70 percent of the Zimbabwean population, while supplying 60 percent of the raw materials required by the industrial sector and contributing 40 percent of total export earnings.
Those statistics underscore the importance of the agricultural sector to Zimbabwe.
The time to resuscitate the sector is now so that in years to come we do not have to rely on handouts from other countries. And with the United States sanctioning Chemplex and the Zimbabwe Fertiliser Company, and by extension all the people of this country, we should be vigilant about protecting our livelihoods.
Irrigation and mechanisation, combined with good farming practices, can take us to the Promised Land. Brazil’s More Food for Africa programme through which several communities have already benefitted from irrigation equipment provides a great foundation for transforming our agricultural sector.
COMMENT: We cannot be beggars for life
The Sunday Mail
Food is the most basic human right, and it is laudable that the Government of Zimbabwe is determined to ensure that everyone enjoys that constitutional and universal right.
With this drought across Southern Africa that has been caused by El-Nino, our people are obviously going to need assistance.
According to the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee, an estimated 1,5 million rural Zimbabweans will be food insecure this year. Others have put that figure at three million. Either way, it is unacceptable that any Zimbabwean go hungry through no fault of his/her own.
It has been reported that the levels of vulnerability and acute food insecurity in Zimbabwe are such that an estimated $1,5 billion is required to mitigate the drought’s effects and to build capacity to avert such an extent of hunger in future.
This situation has necessitated large-scale humanitarian food relief operations all across the country.
As such, the President, his deputies and several other Government officials have on several occasions assured Zimbabweans in drought-stricken areas that no one is going to starve as food relief will be availed to cushion them.
These have not been empty promises. First Lady Amai Grace Mugabe has made it her business to distribute food aid in vulnerable areas.
Only last week, she left many smiling faces in Chivi because of her efforts. As reported elsewhere in this publication, Cabinet has approved a US$200 million National Schools Feeding Scheme to feed four million pupils when the second term of 2016 opens. Our Government has to be commended for stepping up to the task. Several non-governmental organisations have also come to the party and have been offering food aid.
Our gratitude towards the NGOs for their efforts can never be over stated, as long as they stick to their mandate and do not turn into pseudo-political parties and their aid does not come with conditions.
This is something we must be conscious of as we inch towards the 2018 harmonised elections.
But while these measures address immediate food security needs, vulnerable communities should be assisted to build resilience to climatic shocks and eliminate the need for food assistance in the long-term.
We cannot be beggars for life.
As Zimbabweans, we are definitely not a lazy lot. While this season we have been hamstrung by the El nino phenomena, how do we explain the fact that humanitarian organisations have been coming every single year to our rural areas with food aid?
How do we, as a sovereign and proud nation, allow our people to look forward to free handouts, year in year out? Zimbabwe is well-endowed with a lot of water bodies that have been lying idle for years, with some even flooding while the communities around them wait for food aid.
If the trends in recent years are anything to go by, weather patterns have shifted for the worst and we cannot afford to continue relying on rain-fed agriculture. We do not need to look any further than irrigation and mechanisation to start addressing this matter. We need to secure our livelihoods. After all, agriculture is the backbone of Zimbabwe’s economy.
The ZimStat 2013 report told us that 67 percent of the Zimbabwean population lives in rural areas.
Most of these people derive their livelihoods from agriculture and other related economic activities.
Moreover, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation says this sector provides employment and income to 60 to 70 percent of the Zimbabwean population, while supplying 60 percent of the raw materials required by the industrial sector and contributing 40 percent of total export earnings.
Those statistics underscore the importance of the agricultural sector to Zimbabwe.
The time to resuscitate the sector is now so that in years to come we do not have to rely on handouts from other countries. And with the United States sanctioning Chemplex and the Zimbabwe Fertiliser Company, and by extension all the people of this country, we should be vigilant about protecting our livelihoods.
Irrigation and mechanisation, combined with good farming practices, can take us to the Promised Land. Brazil’s More Food for Africa programme through which several communities have already benefitted from irrigation equipment provides a great foundation for transforming our agricultural sector.
CARTOON
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