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Sukulwenkosi Dube-Matutu, Chronicle Reporter
GOVERNMENT is set to roll out a smallholder mechanisation programme to promote the use of machinery by smallholder farmers to maximise production.
Under the programme, a farmer will be able to buy a two-wheel tractor with a disc plough, trailer, planter and boom sprayer and pay in instalments.
The thrust of modernising the country’s pivotal agriculture sector and enhancing production and productivity is in line with the Agriculture and Food Systems Transformation Strategy which seeks to achieve an US$8,2 billion agriculture economy by 2025, a policy that also anchors Vision 2030 to become an upper middle- income economy.
Under the Second Republic, mechanisation and irrigation programmes include the John Deere facility and the Belarus irrigation facility and these are all based on cost recovery.
The John Deere Mechanisation facility which is aimed at achieving the Agricultural Recovery Plan is meant to ensure Zimbabwe achieves self-sufficiency in the production of cereals.
The facility included tractors, combine harvesters, planters, disc harrows, boom sprayers and trailers, among other implements.
In an interview, Matabeleland South provincial mechanisation engineer, Mr Dalisto Varegeyi said the majority of farmers in the country are smallholders hence the need for suitable machinery to upscale their production.
“80 percent of our farmers are smallholder farmers. We are trying to size the plot against the horse power of tractors because you can’t give a 100 horse power tractor to someone who has six hectares of land. This two-wheel tractor is 16 horse power which is more suitable. This is based on a cost benefit analysis where we are saying we cannot use the big tractor on small land as it is expensive to maintain and buy,” he said.
“We are trying to reduce the labour associated with farming by introducing the smallholder mechanisation programme. A farmer will receive a package which comprises the two-wheel tractor with disc plough, trailer, planter and boom sprayer. The package will assist the farmer to till their small-sized land.”
He said the two-wheel tractors are available in the market but some farmers could not afford them while others do not appreciate their benefit.
Mr Varegeyi said programme was set to launched at national level and then cascade to provinces after all the equipment had been mobilised.
He said farmers will be educated on the importance of smallholder mechanisation programme so that they could embrace it.
“We want farmers to understand that this is an effective farming method as it is cheap in terms of operation, fuel and maintenance. This will also make farming easier for farmers as they will be shifting from animal drawn ploughs which are labour intensive,” he said.
“A farmer will be able to perform multiple tasks using that tractor and the package which comes with it. Given that farmers will now be using planters then this will increase precision resulting in maximised production. Scaling up of area that will be tilled. Production per hectare will increase.”
The Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement has embarked on a small-scale agriculture revolution underpinned by the Climate Proofed Presidential Inputs Scheme popularly known as Intwasa/Pfumvudza. — @DubeMatutu
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