Vice president Retired General, Dr Constantino Chiwenga has implored farmers to invest in solar energy as an ideal solution to irrigation.
He said this after touring Avalon farm in Chinhoyi where the owner, Nick Swanepoel, has installed a 152-kilowatt solar system to feed into the irrigation system.
“I have seen quite a good innovation which was done by the Swan family to be able to irrigate the entire farm,” he said.
“They are not depending on ZESA they have done a lot of investment which they are able to pump water from the dams this is what we encouraging other farmers to invest in the solar system that will cut costs on electricity. when his excellency introduced the agric stimulus package he has put in 6.1 billion for agric coz we take agric as an important area where will grow our economy from as well as nutrition and food security. We must be able to feed ourselves not to import food.”
Swanepoel said the solar system has come in handy in cutting electricity costs
“As the vice president said it’s a big investment.it pays off if we did not have solar we wouldn’t be able to pump water into the wheat crop. It is like an insurance policy to be able to get water where it’s needed at the same time to decrease dependency on ZESA. It is really big help.”
The farm is under the command wheat programme and 180 hectares of wheat have planted.
