Maravi

Full utilisation of agric equipment vital

Full utilisation of agric equipment vital

GOVERNMENT must be applauded for showing a greater desire to modernise the agricultural sector by making available to farmers the equipment and implements to boost production. Monday’s distribution of 925 tractors, 35 combine harvesters, 586 disc ploughs, 463 disc harrows, 70 vicon fertilizer spreaders, 241 boom sprayers and 71 planters could not have come at a better time than now when the focus is on production.

There is no disputing the fact that the missing link in the agricultural production matrix has been the equipment and implements with which to utilise the land and inputs that the Government, through various schemes, extended to farmers.

Today, farmers boast of vast tracts of land allocated to them under the land reform programme. Inputs, such as fertilizer, seed and chemicals, were also provided, but still the absence of a properly structured mechanisation programme left many farmers struggling to impact positively on production.

While the equipment and implements distributed so far are a drop in the ocean compared to the huge demand, as President Mugabe rightly said on Monday, "it is a solid step forward in the march towards self-sustenance in food security and other agro-related sectors’’.

The Government has set the tone by distributing the first batch of equipment and implements. The onus now rests on the farmers to use the equipment for purposes that ensure productivity.

It would be a sad chapter in our history to learn that the beneficiaries of the machinery still failed to be productive because the tractors where spending the greater part of the day parked at bars and bottle stores instead of tilling the land.

We hope the Government, through Arex, will put in place a programme of checks and balances so that the machinery is put to its rightful use and that it is visible in the fields.

The effort that the Government, through the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, has put in the mechanisation programme must be reciprocated by equal or even greater effort by the farmers.

And the only way that the reciprocity can be visible to the nation is through adequate food production. This should herald the beginning of a new era in which, barring droughts, Zimbabwe should be able to produce more food for both domestic consumption and export.

Obviously a country that exports more than it imports generates more foreign currency and can even build forex reserves. It is our hope that the equipment and implements will help the country achieve just that for the benefit of everyone.

Certainly nothing should stop us from regaining our status as the breadbasket of Southern Africa, a country known for being a net exporter of agricultural produce.

Many farmers have been experiencing low yields owing largely to the shortage of tractors for tillage, which resulted in delayed land preparation and consequently late planting and falling production.

This should now be a thing of the past as we believe that those who did not receive equipment and implements can still get help from the beneficiaries. Let those with tractors extend the service to those without and that way Zimbabwe can never go wrong.

Labels: MECHANISATION, THE HERALD, TRACTORISATION, ZIMBABWE

posted by MrK @ 6:00 AM