The Sunday Mail
Sunday Mail Reporter
GOVERNMENT’s interventions to revive agriculture and achieve a US$8,2 billion agro-economy by 2025 are beginning to bear fruit, with increased production of food crops in the 2020/2021 cropping season.
In an update on turnaround projects being implemented by the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development, Permanent Secretary Dr John Basera said production of food crops increased by an average 189 percent during the period.
The output of cash crops similarly rose, with cotton registering the most growth at 94 percent followed by soyabean (51 percent) and tobacco (14 percent).
The livestock sub-sector is projected to contribute about US$2 billion, which is 24 percent of the overall agricultural economy by the year 2025.
The growth is mainly predicated on growing the national herd from the current 5,6 million to 8 million during the planned period.
“The food crops production category increased by an average of 189 percent in the 2020/2021 cropping season,” said Dr Basera.
“During the same 2020/21 season, cash crops production grew as follows: tobacco surged by about 14 percent to 211 million kilogrammes, up from 185 million kilogrammes and tobacco export earnings increased by 22,6 percent, cotton (94 percent) and soyabean grew by 51 percent to 72 000 metric tonnes (MT).”
Of the food crops, sweet potato was the most improved at 269 percent, followed by maize (199 percent) and sugar beans (142 percent).
At 35 percent, finger millet registered the least growth in the food crops category.
Dr Basera also said Government is presently pushing to contain and eradicate the scourge of animal diseases such as January Disease, which claimed in excess of 500 000 cattle in the past four years.
“The ministry introduced an intensive blitz dipping programme as well as a blitz tick grease programme under the Presidential Livestock Programme supporting rural livestock farmers.”
As a result, January Disease-related deaths and cases decreased by over 47 percent in 2021.
The blitz tick grease programme has been in existence for two years.
It is being implemented nationwide, especially in the country’s eight rural provinces, and is targeting distributing one million kilogrammes of tick grease to one million households.
Dr Basera said the target was surpassed and to date 1 069 000 kg of tick grease has been distributed across all targeted rural provinces.
“The launch of the Livestock Recovery and Growth Plan saw the resuscitation of over 400 dip tanks in 2021,” he said.
“The country has a total of 4 000 dip tanks, of which about 75 percent are functioning, hence the blitz dip tank resuscitation programme targeting 1000 dip tanks in 2022.”
On climate-proofing agriculture, Dr Basera said Government is implementing the accelerated National Irrigation Rehabilitation and Development Programme aiming to increase the area under functional irrigation from 175 000 ha in 2020 to 350 000 ha by the year 2025.
“An additional 6000 ha under construction will be ready by 2022 winter season.
“The ministry is aggressively exploring ways to revitalise all the 450 smallholder irrigation schemes totalling 26 000ha. Several projects were rolled out to increase the area under functional irrigation …”
Government, Dr Basera added, is targeting to distribute farming inputs to three million households, up from 2,3 million in the Pfumvudza programme.
