dyton mupawaenda
Zvamaida Murwira-Senior Reporter
Zimbabwe’s Agriculture Food Systems and Rural Transformation Strategy has impressed Nigeria and the West African country has sent a high-powered delegation led by its Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Abubakar Shaib Kyari, to tap into local agricultural practices, which have resulted in record-breaking wheat harvests in the last three years.
President Mnangagwa met Minister Kyari at State House in Harare yesterday where they discussed how the two countries could mutually benefit from ensuring food security among their citizens through agriculture.
The discussions centred on how Zimbabwe has managed to turnaround its economy through agriculture, particularly its mechanisation strategy, which has been executed with the collaboration of Belarus.
After meeting President Mnangagwa, Minister Kyari had a meeting with Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development Minister, Dr Anxious Masuka, to further deepen cooperation.
Briefing journalists after their meeting, Minister Kyari said Nigeria was keen to learn about Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector, particularly its mechanisation strategy, to feed its ever-growing population.
He said Nigerian President Bola Tinubu had sent him to study Zimbabwe’s agricultural revolution.
Minister Kyari was accompanied by a high-powered delegation that included Special Assistant to the President Mr Divine Dzidodo Dzegbla and Fatai Karim, Special Adviser to the Governor of the Central Bank.
He hailed President Mnangagwa, saying his leadership had seen agriculture being revolutionised in a short space of time.
Minister Kyari said mechanisation would help incentivise young people in his country to take up agriculture given the convenience brought up by the practice.
“Young people that are of viable age are running away from agriculture, it’s now for the elderly and the only way to incentivise agriculture is to make it easier and conducive like through mechanisation,” he said.
“We are improving, but we still need to do more because of the challenges of a growing population. Mechanisation makes it easy and at the same time, you have a fast turnaround so that you prepare for another cycle. Aftrade have a programme that started here for the past five years.
“We discussed with our president and he said go to Zimbabwe. Initially I was not part of the team but the President said I should go to Zimbabwe. We are somehow around your situation five years ago. We have seen the trajectory, the efforts of President Mnangagwa, it’s tremendous and it is something that needs to be commended. It goes without saying that it is true leadership. If there was no trusted leadership you would not be where you are, and we are happy that Zimbabwe is now fully food self-sufficient.”
Aftrade is a global provider of raw materials and ingredients for the agri-food, cosmetics, chemical, and plastics sectors.
It was founded in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates.
Minister Kyari commended various agricultural programmes the country has embarked on, which include Pfumvudza/Intwasa.
“We were discussing with your officials yesterday about some of the programmes you have started like Pfumvudza, I read about it last year. We have to rise to the occasion as a country.
“The reason why we are here is to learn and to impart what we have as well; we are good at rice, we produce millions of tonnes of rice and some parts of Africa come to Nigeria to learn about its production,” he said.
On his part, Minister Masuka said Zimbabwe’s transformative agriculture led by President Mnangagwa has attracted the attention of Nigeria, an indication that the country is in the right direction.
He said agriculture has not only helped to achieve food sufficiency, but boost the country’s economy.
“Achieving food security and being involved in economic growth is the essence of Vision 2030 with a very important enabler, that of mechanisation. Agriculture transformation is being led by President Mnangagwa. As a farmer himself, he is leading by example.
“A combination of leadership and political will is deployed in the person of President Mnangagwa and as a Ministry, we implement his vision. We are ordinarily food secure except the drought that visited us, but we are able to respond with winter wheat, which has seen us producing a record wheat production, making Zimbabwe and Ethiopia the only wheat self-sufficient nations in Africa and I have seen Nigeria is importing a lot of wheat, so I have found a market,” said Minister Masuka.
Zimbabwe will get more tractors and combine harvesters from Belarus through Aftrade, giving impetus to the country’s agricultural transformative agenda.
Minister Masuka said owing to the growing collaboration with Belarus, the country will be expanding its silos as output continues to grow.
Minister Kyari visited some farms on Wednesday to have an appreciation of how mechanisation has boosted production and productivity.
Online Reporter
