The country’s agricultural sector is set for an aggressive transformation towards being food secure and exporting its surplus in line with the national vision of attaining an upper middle-income economy by 2030.
Officiating at a strategic planning meeting in Bulawayo, Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement Minister, Dr Anxious Masuka said they are working on ensuring the country’s fertile soils and vast water bodies are exploited sustainably.
“As we move forward, we are set to transform the agricultural sector to levels never seen before where the country is set to be food-secure to a point of pushing huge volumes of value-added exports that will help the nation get to the upper middle-income economy by 2030.
“So, we must not be content with exporting unprocessed agriculture produce. Let’s adopt the value chain approach and only in that way will we be a factor on the national economy,” said the minister.
Dr Masuka challenged resettled farmers under the A2 model to transform their operations to business units in line with the national vision of sustainable and efficient land utilisation.
Communal and A1 farmers were urged to form a small and medium scale farming sector which is also business-oriented.
Minister Masuka further underscored the need to establish piped water schemes and drilling of more boreholes to transform livelihoods through sustainable projects.
He said: “Gone are the days where women in rural areas continue to walk long distances to fetch water. No, there must be a change we have to drill boreholes in every community and schools so that these communities invest in horticulture projects. We must ensure that communal people have access to water and this is within our means we can do it we have highly qualified people who must demonstrate why they are at work.”
The ministry is expected to come up a blue print that will guide the nation on production lines, including improved ranching systems where the focus will be on breeds that fetch high prices on the market.
