Zimbabwe begins a mega agriculture project to ensure food security in the country
The government of Zimbabwe is planning on farming 300,000 hectares of land under irrigation to ensure that the country is food sufficient, reports the Herald.
The agriculture project is to create food security in the Southern African country even during the drought periods. The government has also adopted the Command Livestock concept that will broadened the agriculture scheme, with plans to include large scale fish farming.
“This country is sometimes visited by drought. In a drought year we will not be able to have the yields we are talking about (two million metric tonnes of maize per year). To resolve that and to be permanently in food sufficiency situation, we need to have 300,000 hectares of land under irrigation. Currently, we have 159,000 hectares of land under irrigation, so we are going to increase land under irrigation to 300,000 hectares so that whether there is rain or no rain,” said acting President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The acting President further added that the government is also pushing for more livestock products such as beef, dairy and poultry since there are ready markets in many countries under the agriculture scheme.
President Mugabe is expected to launch a mega fishing project on the 19th of May that will see 1.6 million fingerlings introduced in the fisheries scheme that will be in every province of the country.
Zimbabwe has also secured 65 00 hectares of land to start wheat farming that is aimed at meeting the local demand and producing extra for exportation.
“We use about 350,000 tonnes of wheat to about 400,000 tonnes for our bread a year, but we don’t produce enough wheat in this country, we import,” said Mnangangwa, adding “ We have now started a programme which in three seasons we should be able to produce enough wheat in Zimbabwe for our own consumption and thereafter we plan for exports.”
