Chronicle Editor
Tawanda Mangoma in CHIREDZI
A Cabinet minister has said the country has gone a gear up towards exploring the value addition chain backed by a bumper harvest recorded on nearly all crops grown across the country last season.
Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister Dr Joseph Made (pictured left) said on Friday that the country was now taking heed of President Mugabe’s call to further process agricultural products.
He said the success of the Specialised Maize Production and Import Substitution Programme and the Presidential Well-Wishers Free Input Scheme turned the country’s agriculture revolution.
These programmes have seen farmers delivering over two million tonnes of maize and small grains to Grain Marketing Board (GMB), while over 75 000 tonnes of cotton were delivered to the Cotton Company of Zimbabwe (Cottco).
Dr Made said with the recent boom in agricultural production, the industrial sectors should start further processing the harvested commodities.
“We are all taking heed of His Excellency’s position that our focus now as we continue to improve our agriculture production should be maintaining a balance between increased productivity and the process of beneficiation and value addition,” he said.
“One of the things that we are immediately examining with the Minister of Industry and Commerce is the question of starting to extract cooking oil from maize, just like what we used to do in previous years.”
Dr Made said the concept of value addition should start at village level, as farmers should contemplate on producing stock feeds for their livestock.
“Maize cooking oil is one product which we can extract from maize, but we can also increase stock feed production while also addressing the human needs by producing maize-meal,” he said.
“In cotton, we can get cooking oil, lint and stock feeds. We have soyabeans cake and groundnuts cake which we can use to improve the quality of our livestock.”
Dr Made said Zanu-PF Woman’s League members who received a donation of over 30 000 chicks from First Lady Dr Grace Mugabe should not be worried about feeds because the country had sufficient stocks.
“Remember, with stockfeeds we will be able to help our various classes of livestock as His Excellency continues to say that we must export quality meat to the rest of the world,” he said.
“It would be noble for us to help woman who received chicks from First Lady Dr Grace Mugabe so that the initiative will push the country’s poultry production to greater heights.
“We want even farmers in rural areas to supplement their livestock with stockfeeds so that quality and quantity is improved.”
Online Reporter