Journeying towards Vision 2030 agriculturally

24 Apr, 2022 - 00:04 0 Views
Journeying towards Vision 2030 agriculturally

The Sunday Mail

Dr John Basera

Part 1:

ZIMBABWE is an agrarian economy and most sectors are directly and indirectly linked to agriculture.

It provides employment and incomes directly and indirectly for about 67 percent of the population, supplies 65 percent of the raw materials required by local industry and contributes over 40 percent of total export earnings.

Agriculture is also key in pursuit of the growth of the rural economy as the sector is up to four times more powerful at reducing poverty and upscaling livelihoods than any other sector.

In fact, agriculture is the Vision 2030 accelerator, meaning getting the sector right presents great opportunities for inclusive rural economic development.

Guided by the aspirations underlying Africa Agenda 2063, the Government, through the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development, commits to transform the sector by rolling out initiatives that positively influence performance of various agricultural sub-sectors.

Pursuant and consistent with President Mnangagwa’s clarion call to have all hands on deck in pursuit of Vision 2030, the ministry is implementing programmes bound and guided by the following blueprints:

Agriculture and Food Systems Transformation Strategy (2020 -2024);

Agriculture Recovery Plan (2020-2025)

Horticulture Recovery and Growth Plan (2020 -2025);

Livestock Recovery and Growth Plan (2020-2025);

Accelerated Irrigation Rehabilitation and Development Plan;

Farm Mechanisation Facilities; and

Integrated Agricultural Information Management System (AIMS)

All the sub-sector blueprints were aligned to aspirations underlying the first five-year National Development Strategy (NDS1) and crafted to engender the envisaged agricultural transformation agenda whose six outcomes are food security, import substitution, diversified exports, value addition, employment creation, and improved incomes and standards of living for the people.

The Agriculture Recovery Plan as a key flagship blueprint was endorsed by Cabinet and launched by the President in line with his Vision 2030.

The immediate target was to reverse the continued structural decline in food production; more importantly, in all agricultural value chains, including the grains and oilseeds sector for household, national food and nutrition security targeting import substitution.

The best and smartest export any economy can ever wish for is “not to import what the economy can competitively produce locally.”

The Agriculture Recovery Plan is being implemented in a space where the Agriculture and Food Systems Transformation Strategy broadly spells out the roadmap of ensuring that the agriculture sector achieves a US$8,2 billion agriculture economy by year 2025.

Key strategic interventions and progress tracker

Government, through the ministry, has over the last few years taken deliberate interventions to climate-proof the agricultural sector as occurrence of droughts is becoming frequent and more pronounced, with a devastating impact to vulnerable farming households.

Climate change effects and variabilities pose the greatest challenge in the quest to ensure food and nutritional security for the country.

The Government, through the ministry, resolved to tackle this threat head-on and various programmes including the Pfumvudza/Intwasa initiative, accelerated water harvesting and dam construction as well as the irrigation rehabilitation and development were initiated and implemented in the various facets of the broader agricultural arena.

 Food crops

The food crops production category increased by an average of 189 percent in the 2020/2021 cropping season with specific sub-sector growth levels shown below:

Cash crops

During the same 2020/21 season, 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 grew by 94 percent and soyabean grew by 51 percent to 72 000 metric tonnes.

Livestock

The livestock sub-sector is envisaged to contribute about US$2 billion, which is 24 percent of the overall agricultural economy by year 2025.

This growth is mainly predicated on growing the national herd from the current 5,6 million to 8 million by year 2025.

The ministry is on a drive to contain and eradicate the scourge of animal diseases, especially “January Disease” that claimed in excess of 500 000 cattle in four years.

The ministry introduced an intensive blitz dipping programme as well as blitz tick grease programme under the Presidential Livestock Programme supporting rural livestock farmers. January Disease-related deaths and cases decreased by over 47 percent in 2021 after the religious implementation of the above-stated interventions.

The blitz tick grease programme has been in existence for two years now and is implemented nationwide, covering the eight rural provinces and targeting distribution of one million kilogrammes of tick grease to one million households.

The target was surpassed and to date 1 069 000 kgs of tick grease have been distributed across all rural provinces.

The launch of the Livestock Recovery and Growth Plan saw the resuscitation of over 400 dip tanks in 2021.

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 1 000 dip tanks in 2022.

For the country to sustainably eradicate January Disease and other tick-borne-related diseases, we have to dip all the animals religiously following the 5;4;4 dipping regime for the next two years, hence the move by the Government to have functional dipping infrastructure.

Further, Government is accelerating the local manufacture of dipping chemicals working with the private sector for import substitution.

The import substitution drive will have an ultimate effect of reducing the cost of dipping chemicals by over 52 percent and make acaricides affordable to the generality of the country’s livestock farmers.

Other initiatives in the livestock sub-sector include:

Provincial integrated youth hubs where youths in all the 10 provinces were empowered with seed support of 600 heifers by the President.

Gonarezhou Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) Fence project where it is targeted to fence a perimeter of 164km in Gonarezhou National Park and to date 108,5 km has been erected. This project is targeted at containment of buffalo-livestock interaction since buffaloes are the transmitting agent of FMD. This project allows farmers to avert loss of cattle through diseases and trade in beef products that are safe for human consumption.

Establishment of Mazowe Bull Centre and Semen Processing Laboratory was completed in addition to existing capacity at Chinhoyi State University in Mashonaland West. The programme is aimed at genetic improvement of the national cattle herd focusing on the communal herd, where in-breeding is on the increase through a blitz artificial insemination programme which was launched in the first quarter of 2022 in Mhondoro.

Local production and distribution of 15 million doses of Newcastle disease vaccine was completed and all the eight rural provinces have benefitted.

Survey of 9 100 km2 of tsetse-infested areas, namely Kariba, Hurungwe, Makonde, Mudzi, Mbire and Chipinge districts, was completed with the intention to bring more land under crop and livestock production.

The Presidential Rural Poultry Pass-On Scheme (10 chicks per household) targeting 450 000 beneficiaries and the national launch is expected in July 2022.

Presidential Rural Goat Pass-On Scheme targeting 600 000 beneficiaries and the national launch is expected in September 2022.

Presidential Silage Input Programme for smallholder dairy farmers supported 1 498 dairy farmers and 1 312 hectares of maize for silage was cultivated in the 2021/22 season.

Legume Pasture Production input distribution targeting 515 000 farmers and to date 307 000 beneficiaries have received inputs for pasture.

The silage and legume pasture programmes lowered the feed costs and improved viability in the dairy sector and monthly milk production has increased by 14 percent in February and 23 percent in March. The dairy sector is on a rebound and grew by 4 percent from about 75 million litres to about 80 million litres in 2021.

Climate-proofing agriculture

Accelerated irrigation rehabilitation and development programmes are the panacea to climate-proofing the agricultural sector, which is so vulnerable to climate change. Two strategies – the rehabilitation (Quick-Fix programme) and the Development (Full-Kit) – have been explored and deployed since 2020.

Quick-Fix entails rehabilitation of non-functional irrigation, while Full-Kit involves establishing new irrigation conveyance infrastructure, capitalising on the numerous water bodies the country is endowed with.

The ministry is implementing the Accelerated National Irrigation Rehabilitation and Development Programme aiming to increase the area under functional irrigation from 175 000ha in 2020 to 350 000ha by year 2025.

Flagship programmes such as the Smallholder Irrigation Revitalisation Programme (SIRP) co-founded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), OFID and the Government of Zimbabwe, Turn Key Irrigation Programmes, NEAPS (National Enhanced Agricultural Productivity Scheme) supported by Maka Resources and CBZ Bank and Pedstock 1 and 2 Facilities administered through the Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC) are aimed at harnessing the country’s water bodies potential of irrigating over two million hectares.

An additional 6 000 ha under construction will be ready by the 2022 winter season. The ministry is aggressively exploring ways to revitalise all the 450 smallholder irrigation schemes totalling 26 000 ha.

Several projects were rolled out and the status of implementation is as tabulated above

To be continued

 

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