Farmers4ED impart knowledge to Bulawayo young farmers

Bongani Ndlovu, Chronicle Reporter
FARMERS for Economic Development (Famers4ED) recently held a meeting with young farmers in Bulawayo to teach them about the benefits of Rural Development 8.0 as more youths are set to benefit from the reform programme.

In June, President Mnangagwa launched Provincial Integrated Youths Skills Development Centres (PIYSDC) for the country’s 10 provinces where over 5 000 youths will be recruited at each centre annually before being equipped with agriculture skills.

Speaking during the launch of incubation centres at DCK Farm in Kwekwe, the President described agriculture as one of the major pillars of the country’s economy, hence Government’s thrust to empower youths who constitute 62 percent of the total population.

The launch of the incubation centres saw the President distributing nearly 700 heifers which will be shared among youths across all the provinces under the Presidential Heifer Pass-on Scheme as Government moves to empower the younger generation.

Under the Provincial Integrated Youths Skills Development Centres, the President directed each provincial minister to identify a 500-hectare piece of land that would be dedicated to youth projects as part of the Government’s policy to ensure youths participate in national programmes.

With the country anchored to become an upper-middle-income economy by 2030, Government is working on various initiatives meant to transform agricultural systems in rural setups to encourage farmers to take up farming as a business.

Rural development 8.0 is anchored on transformation for the attainment of vision 2030.

The rural development 8.0 policy has eight components which are the Presidential Input Programme-Pfumvudza/Intwasa, Presidential Input Programme for Cotton, Presidential Rural Development which is expanded to include the Presidential Borehole Drilling Scheme and the Presidential Communities Fisheries Programme, Presidential Blitz Tick Grease programme, which seeks to ensure that cattle owning households are able to prevent the recurrence of January disease. There is also the Presidential Rural Poultry Programme and the Presidential Goat Pass-on Scheme.

Farmers 4ED national chairperson, Mr Tapiwa Chitate, and national secretary for youth affairs in the organisation, Mr Silence Nkonde were recently in Bulawayo to address youth farmers on the benefits of the Rural Development 8.0 programme being rolled out by Government.

The closed-door meeting was attended by officials from the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development, Agricultural Rural Development Authority (Arda).

In an interview after the meeting, Mr Chitate said the organisation is complementing Government efforts to boost food security in the country.

“We were here to unpack the Rural Development 8.0 programme to the youths in Bulawayo. There are a number of projects such as fisheries, borehole drilling, nutritional gardens, the Presidential Livestock and Rural Poultry schemes.

These are some of the programmes, which youths should actually capitalise on,” he said.

Mr Nkonde urged youths to approach the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development to receive training for them to benefit from the land reform programme.

“We will continue to train the youths on skills development. For youths to be allocated land, they have to pass through that programme and be issued with competence certificates by the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development. That’s the trump card for them to be allocated land,” he said.

“The Ministry is setting up two nutritional gardens and two boreholes in every ward in Zimbabwe so that the youths and women can benefit.”

Last year in December, President Mnangagwa launched the Presidential Rural Development Scheme which is benefitting more than 1,8 million households as the Second Republic accelerates efforts to alleviate poverty among the rural folks in line with the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1).

The scheme, which was launched at Sekusile-Makorokoro nutrition garden in Jinjika Village, Makorokoro area of Mangwe District in Matabeleland South, is uplifting livelihoods in rural communities through creation of employment opportunities for women and youths, among other vulnerable members of society.

It is also in line with the benchmarks outlined in the Agriculture and Food System Transformation Strategy whose national thrust is to see Zimbabwe achieving a US$8,2 billion agriculture economy by 2025.

The strategy, which was launched by President Mnangagwa last year in August is underpinned by growing the economy and ensuring Zimbabwe grows its own food and ensure the majority of rural families move from poverty to affluence.

Under the Presidential Rural Development Scheme, Government is drilling and equipping one borehole in each of the country’s 35 000 villages. Each village is being empowered with a nutrition garden with a wide range of fruit trees and sweet potato vines being distributed to households.

The idea behind the community gardens is in trying to establish nutrition hubs for villagers while generating income for their communities and in turn mitigate the problem of high unemployment numbers among youths.