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Precious Manomano-Herald Reporter
Agriculture engineering and mechanisation are key drivers to transform farming in line with the Government’s push to revolutionise and industrialise farming in the country, Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development Deputy Minister Vangelis Haritatos said yesterday.
In an interview on the sidelines of the 2022 staff performance awards ceremony at the Department of Agricultural Engineering held in Harare, Deputy Minister Haritatos said the Government was supporting the national engineering of agricultural implements by local manufacturers.
This is done through provision of equipment to support local manufacturers such as universities, army engineers and the Institute of Agriculture Engineering.
Farmers looking for tractors and combine harvesters have been advised to approach Agricultural Finance Corporation for assistance, as the parastatal in charge of the Belarusian facility, a major Government sponsored programme to accelerate and grow the import of required equipment.
“A lot of farmers were very keen and we made a representation and applications to the banks in charge of the distribution of tractors,” said Deputy Minister Haritatos.
“As a country, we do have a deficit on mechanisation, which is why Government interventions are being made.
“Through our mechanisation alliance, which is an alliance between Government and private sector, we are also coming with other interventions that will bring in private sector tractors and combine harvesters.”
In terms of planters and other machines related to planting and preparations for the planting season, Deputy Minister Haritatos said they were insisting that suppliers do reverse engineering to reduce the percentage of imports as much as possible.
“When it comes to tractors and combine harvesters, these are more specialised equipment that are not very easy to reverse engineer, but in the near future, we are assuring that we can do as much as possible locally versus importation,” he said.
“Yes, the deficit does exist but it’s not a big deficit and we are closing the deficit quite quickly.”
Mechanisation of agriculture is critical as it cut the cost of production, which could hinder the participation of some farmers in the food production subsector, at a time the ministry seeks to transform the agriculture sector to be more business-driven through maximum and optimised productivity.
Speaking on behalf of the Ministry’s Permanent Secretary Dr John Basera, chief director of human resources, Mr Gibson Chijarira, hailed those in the sector for working hard.
“There is overwhelming evidence that no economy will grow without the sector.”
“The sector will contribute 13 to 15 percent Gross Domestic Product (GDP) every year,” he said. “The ministry is in full support of Vision 2030.
“There are major challenges which affected us in 2021 and 2022. We talk of Covid-19 and conflicts in Eastern Europe and we have soldered on and we got to this far.”
Chief director of the department of engineering, mechanisation and soil conservation Engineer Edwin Zimhunga said hard work due to team work, had positively transformed their operations.
He said as a department, they had a target of 5 000 hectares of contour construction in 2022, but by June the target was met and it was revised upwards to 8 000ha, which was also met September, and again, it was revised upwards to 10 000ha, which was met in October, so it was further revised to 13 000ha.
Eng Zimhunga said they have also increased the uptake of tractors.
Once agriculture has been mechanised to reasonable levels, it will play a pivotal role in setting the economy on a positive growth and recovery trajectory through the realisation of a potential GDP of 33 percent as downstream benefits of mechanised operations.
There is also major benefit for Zimbabwe’s huge rural population who as they grow more and sell more so their incomes rise.
Online Reporter