Govt avails food aid for Mbire community

Daniel Chigunwe Herald Correspondent

The community of Mbire district in Mashonaland Central province has heaved a sigh of relief after the government availed 1 500 tons of grain as food aid to alleviate hunger.

Recently, the local leadership raised a red flag after some people were relying on root tubers, popularly known in indigenous lingua as manyanya, for food prompting government to release food aid in the form of sorghum.

Food security issues remain a challenge in this flood-prone Zambezi river basin due to its poor saline soils, extreme hot temperatures as well as field crop destruction by herds of elephants in various encounters of human and wildlife conflicts.

In a comment following an engagement meeting to discuss development issues by a Mbire delegation team, Provincial Affairs and Devolution Minister, Captain (retired) Christopher Magomo revealed that more social workers have been deployed on ground to speed up the distribution process of the grain.

“Grain is already at Grain Marketing Board (Mushumbi depot) and enumerators are already in the process of gathering information as distribution follows behind. Government has since employed social workers to fast-track distribution,” said Minister Magomo.

The aid is targeting about 44 000 households in Mbire for the next two months whilst more measures to mitigate this year’s drought effects are being taken.

Head of the delegation team that was comprised of Mbire senior political leaders, Mr Charles Mtukudzi, applauded the government’s sensitivity to the needs of the community, “We want to thank our listening President Mnangagwa’s government for swiftly attending to the issue of hunger in Mbire which had become a thorn in our foot as local leaders.

“Food security issues remain a challenge for our people mainly as a result of climatic, geographical and environmental characteristics of our location which makes agricultural activities a challenge,” said Mr Mtukudzi.

The meeting further explored other development issues including the completion of the Kanyemba road construction, expediting of government projects in Kanyemba and tackling of power issues in the district.

Government is further earmarked to look at measures to deal with problems currently hampering the full operations and productivity of the irrigation scheme in Kanyemba which can further mitigate drought issues thereby addressing food security challenges.

As part of the Second Republic’s long-term measure in addressing economic hindrances in the Dande valley, the government is in the process of constructing the Dande Dam which is envisioned to transform farming fortunes for both Guruve and Mbire locals.