Online Reporter
Zvamaida Murwira
Senior Reporter
GOVERNMENT is stepping up efforts to distribute a consignment of 35 000 tractors, one for each village in the country, to modernise agriculture, boost productivity and strengthen national food security ahead of the summer cropping season.
Under this rural mechanisation drive, every village will be equipped with at least one small tractor in line with the National Development Strategy 2 (NDS2).
Government is keen to support Village Business Units (VBUs) across the country’s 35 000 villages, transforming traditional subsistence farming into productive, market-oriented rural enterprises.
“The President, in the next two months, will be launching a mechanisation programme for 35 000 villages, so that each village in our view, must have a tractor suitable for their circumstances,” said Agriculture, Mechanisation Water and Rural Resettlement Minister Anxious Masuka.
“I expect that innovative businesses will see a business opportunity in establishing an assembling plant for tractors, but also to go further to begin to manufacture them. So that is a business opportunity.
“As Government we have visited two countries where we feel we can start localisation of the assembly of these tractors.”
The Minister said this at the Zimbabwe Industrialisation Conference and Expo (ZICE 2026) which was held last week.
The scheme to be launched by President Mnangagwa, seeks to help villagers replace the traditional hoe and plough, with tractors as the country moves to transform its agricultural sector.
Minister Masuka said there will be downstream benefits as the Government will move to localise the assembling of tractors and other mechanisation equipment.
He said over the past 100 years, agriculture had been anchored on a hoe and the plough and it was high time to move to the next level of mechanisation.
“We have to move with times and look at agricultural mechanisation in our villages,” said Minister Masuka.
He said mechanisation formed part of key enablers of agriculture.
“The tractor fleet was 7 500 in 2017 and we are currently sitting at 17 800 tractors. I expect another 5 000 tractors to be coming soon because we have 11 dealers that we are working with,” he said.
Additionally, the government is mobilising tractors for the commercial farming sector.
Turning to youth, Minister Masuka said Government valued young people and wanted them to participate in agriculture value chains.
“The policy now is that 20 percent of land that becomes available must go to the youths,” said Minister Masuka.
He said Zimbabwe is an agro-based economy, and it is that sector that must power its citizens out of poverty as the country move towards Vision 2030 as envisaged by the National Development Strategy 2.
“We have the Agriculture Food Systems and Rural Transformation Strategy 2, 2026-2030, which has adopted a value chain approach, and we are looking at 35 value chains: crop, livestock, fisheries.
“But let me then contextualize and say, of the 11% GDP contribution by agriculture, you will see the 17% contribution in industry is largely driven by agro-led value chains: food, beverages and so forth. So you can see how we are supporting industry,” said Minister Masuka.
Speaking at the same occasion, Finance and Economic Development Minister, Professor Mthuli Ncube said there will be no “dramatic policy changes” that he will introduce when he presents the Mid Term Policy Review in Parliament this week.
“We have stability in the economy right now, we have the lowest inflation rate in both local and foreign currency. We have fiscal and monetary discipline, good coordination and it is showing in the rest of the economy and the economy is going strong,” said Prof Ncube.
“So maybe when you look at all this, one does not want to rock the boat and start introducing dramatic policies in July, in the middle of the year. Let, the ship sail and what we should do is to embed and support the stability.
“I do not expect dramatic changes or policies, we want to keep things as they are, the ship is sailing steadily do not disturb it.”
The conference was officially opened by President Mnangagwa and drew Cabinet Ministers, captains of industry, diplomats accredited to Zimbabwe among others.
