adminLloyd Gumbo recently in Mashonaland Central
Mashonaland Central province has maize surplus of 72 000 tonnes from the 2014 – 2015 cropping season with the First Family ranked among major producers.
Dr Grace Mugabe Foundation Farm in Mazowe, owned by the First Family, won the Mashonaland Central Land Reform top producer award for the just ended cropping season.
Speaking during Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko’s tour of Mashonaland Central province this week, the Minister of State for Provincial Affairs, Advocate Martin Dinha, said they beat all the other provinces in meeting the Zim-Asset goal on Food Security.
“In terms of food security, we are the only province with surplus of 72 000 tonnes meaning that we can export to other provinces,” he said.
“We have achieved this feat because of command agriculture as we ordered farmers in the province to dedicate a significant portion to staple food production. We may be geographically smaller than Mashonaland East and Mashonaland West provinces but we beat them.”
In an interview with The Herald later on, Minister Dinha gave special mention to the role played by the First Family in ensuring that there was food security.
“Our total production is 204, 283 metric tonnes with Mazowe leading at 67, 610 tonnes. Bindura is at 40, 310. Our provincial food requirements are at 131,413 tonnes. That means we have surplus of 72, 859 tonnes
“Mazowe district is leading mainly because our top maize producer in the Province is Amai Dr Grace Mugabe under Grace Mugabe Foundation Farm which runs Mazowe Children’s Home.
“She is the largest single maize producer in the province and her contribution led Mazowe to be on top for three consecutive years now followed by Bindura, Guruve and then Shamva,” he said.
Minister Dinha said they put mechanisms in place to ensure farmers complied with the directive of growing maize to guarantee food security.
He said that instead of Government importing maize, it must buy from local farmers and pay them promptly to encourage them to keep growing maize.
He said A1 farmers were expected to put at least half of a hectare to maize production while A2 farmers were to dedicate at least a quarter of total arable land to maize.
“Further, we do district and ward yearly production targets and tillage thresholds, which go up to the expected household target in communal areas and up to farm level for A1 and A2.
“We want to encourage increased output per hectare for maize because we are not happy with the current national average of 0.8 tonnes per hectare.
It must come to reasonably five tonnes per hectare or the optimum of 10 tonnes.
“It is of no use tilling a large hectare with little inputs and realising an insignificant yield. We must aim for higher productivity per given land size,” said Minister Dinha.
Speaking in the briefing with VP Mphoko, Mashonaland Central Zanu-PF provincial chairperson, Cde Dickson Mafios, said there were a number of issues affecting the province particularly in agriculture.
“There is an outcry here because there are a lot of issues about double allocations. People are not getting much needed assistance. The party isn’t in control of the allocations.
Online Reporter