Farirai Machivenyika-Senior Reporter
State-owned Agriculture and Rural and Development Authority is targeting 100 000 hectares under maize and traditional grains this summer cropping season, Deputy Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development, Vangelis Haritatos told Parliament last week.
The Deputy Minister told the National Assembly in a ministerial statement in response to a report by the Portfolio Committee on Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Resettlement on ARDA’s operations.
“Looking forward, the ARDA Summer Plan is targeting to establish 100 000 hectares of summer crops split as follows; 60 000 hectares of irrigated maize and 40 000 hectares of dry land small grains or traditional grains.
“The Summer Plan production will be done by ARDA estates, irrigation schemes, ARDA smallholder cluster farmers and ARDA joint venture farmers across the eight agricultural provinces,” he said.
Deputy Minister Haritatos thanked the committee for noting improvements in ARDA’s operations through the implementation of several strategies.
“On the whole, it is gratifying to note that the plaudits of commendation from the Committee expressing its appreciation of the accomplishments registered by ARDA in the roll-out and administration of the joint venture programme across the country itself is a game-changer for the capacitation of our farmers towards production and productivity for national food security and self-sustenance.
“The successes achieved by ARDA are ubiquitous in the committee’s findings across the joint venture farms visited throughout the country, in which farmers gave their testimonies on the effectiveness and efficacy of the joint venture programme.
“These speak to increased production and output per hectare as a result of timely access to inputs and technical support from ARDA agronomists, consequent to which most farmers achieved an average of 7 tonnes per hectare,” he said.
In the report, the committee noted the challenges faced by farmers in terms of access to more land for expansion of operations, inadequate irrigation capacity and delayed payments for delivered produce by the Grain Marketing Board .
“There have been various initiatives, including the recently introduced Crop Purchase Buffer Fund, aimed at ensuring timely payments to farmers and other interventions to assist these joint venture partners in improving irrigation capacity, access to tillage machinery and agricultural inputs at concessionary rates,” he said.
Added Deputy Minister Haritatos: “As rightly pointed out by the committee, ARDA has been proactive in ameliorating the situation to capacitate its estates for heightened agricultural production, financial resources permitting.
“In a bid to improve productivity and efficiency in the agricultural sector, the Government has, through the Ministry, embarked on various initiatives that have seen several thousands of hectares being put under irrigation.
“Schemes under the Special Drawing Rights facility, the Small-Scale Farmers Booster Kit, are some of the initiatives where the AFC is providing capital for irrigation development.”
The Small-Scale Farmers’ Booster Kit is a package with irrigation equipment to cover one hectare and was launched in Mashonaland Central by President Mnangagwa over a month ago.
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