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Herald Reporter
GAMBIAN President Adama Barrow has praised Zimbabwe’s economic resilience in the face of nearly 25 years of illegal economic sanctions imposed by some Western countries, mainly the United States.
The sanctions were imposed in protest after the successful land reform, which, in a short space of time, has seen black farmers shattering production records set by the white former colonial farmers in the over 100 years they were tilling the land.
President Barrow made these remarks recently when he met Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to The Gambia, James Maridadi, in Banjul.
Ambassador Maridadi, who is resident in Dakar, Senegal, is accredited to five other countries in the region including The Gambia.
In this case, he was in Banjul to finalise a tripartite farming venture where agriculture expertise, technology and seed will be procured from Zimbabwe with the government of The Gambia providing 1 000 hectares of arable land on the shores of the River Gambia near the Malian border.
A private Gambian investor, the Gach Group, is providing the funds.
The embassy is undertaking the joint venture as a way to showcase seed varieties and irrigation technology made in Zimbabwe as well as using agriculture experts available in the country.
This project requires the services of agronomists, irrigation specialists and agriculture economists and all the experts will be sourced from Zimbabwe, according to the tripartite arrangement.
President Barrow said Zimbabwe was renowned for its agricultural expertise and was reputed as Africa’s breadbasket, which position had been threatened by illegal sanctions, until President Mnangagwa came into office and transformed the sector through technology and dam construction.
While briefing President Barrow, Ambassador Maridadi said the attitude of Zimbabweans towards land was unique and cited former South Africa President Thabo Mbeki who, during his tenure, recounted a story of two Zimbabwean science teachers who had just been named farmers of the year in the Eastern Cape following their use of a piece of land left idle by a commercial farmer because the soils were exhausted.
Ambassador Maridadi said when a Zimbabwean sees arable land, they see many opportunities and possibilities, which has seen many young people reconnecting with the land productively.
Online Reporter