Food woes: Land reform absolved

She said the shortages were a result of droughts.
Minister Nyoni was responding to concerns expressed by delegates on the effects of the country’s land reform on food security in Zimbabwe that were raised during debate on Agricul­ture Development and Food Security in Africa during the second day of the International Conference on African Women Development.
The conference is being held in Dubai.
She said that the production of the country’s staple food, maize, had actu­ally increased as a result of the land reform programme.
“Traditionally our maize has been grown by communal farmers even dur­ing the colonial era with their pro­duction contributing 60 percent of our total maize production and this has risen to 90 percent as a result of the land reform programme,” she said.
To mitigate against droughts, Min­ister Nyoni said Government was working on a programme to provide irrigation equipment to different parts of the country to ensure agriculture production throughout the year.
She said the country’s land reform programme initiated by President Mugabe had been key to women empowerment as some women had become land owners.
“President Mugabe is a leader who deserves to be celebrated because of his role in empowering women.
“He is also a man who has a vision that is 50 years ahead of his time,” she said.
Meanwhile, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated executive director, Mrs Jolone Okorodudu, who addressed a topic on micro-finance for women’s development, said financing of women’s projects was key to the suc­cess of the African economy.
“We need to prioritise funding for women’s projects because women have shown that they are trustworthy and that they can work twice as hard as men,” she said.
She, however, pointed out that the financial support should be accompa­nied by training programmes to equip the women with requisite skills as well as business and financial management to better manage their projects and loans.
Mrs Okorodudu said as a bank oper­ating in Nigeria they had experi­enced challenges in loan repayments that resulted in them withdrawing micro-finance support to some areas in Nige­ria. African countries, she added, should follow the example of Brazil which availed US$10 billion in sup­port of women projects last year.