Chronicle Editor
FOLLOWING the establishment of two Physical Agricultural Centres of Excellence (Aces) and one virtual centre of excellence under the EU- Funded Zimbabwe Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Services (Zakis) project, Agritex was tasked to spearhead the establishment of District Agricultural Centres of Excellence (Daces).
Agritex with partners and stakeholders from Research, agricultural education has successfully established four Daces in Chegutu, Mhondoro-Ngezi, Insiza and Matobo and these centres are now fully functional and have established some crop and livestock in their respective sites.
The District centres are tasked to demonstrate best practices in crop and livestock production while providing research and knowledge linkages to farmers and other stakeholders in the area they service.
The district centres will play a pivotal role in the country’s agricultural reform strategy as they take the message right down to farmers in districts. They also help staff in the department and ministry implement ministerial and national blue prints such as Agricultural Recovery Plan, Livestock Growth and Development Plan and Horticultural Growth and Development Plan; all these prints will feed into our Agriculture and Food Systems Strategy which in turn contributes to National Development Strategy 1 right through to achieve Vision 2030.
The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural resettlement once said, “For us to transform agriculture, we need to close a fundamental gap or this puzzling divergence which is that our research yields are increasing while actual farm productivity is decreasing. We need to close that gap through knowledge sharing and learning events at the ACEs and ensure that information for improved productivity is effectively disseminated to farmers.”
The crops established at centres are now at maturity stage and ready for harvesting.
Online Reporter