Security of tenure vital for agric sector, says Biti

leases, the Minister of Finance Tendai Biti has said.
“We need to resolve the issue of security of tenure and provide our farmers with securitised long leases. They must then develop business models, which they can use to borrow money from the banks,” he said

In an interview yesterday, the minister said it was time farmers started taking farming as a business and developed business models to help them secure funding from the banks since the Government was incapable of fully funding the agricultural sector.

He said it was unfortunate for anyone to expect the Government to finance agriculture in full, as there was no Government in the world that can ever finance agriculture to that extent.
“As long as the farmers do not have securitised leases, then let us forget about agriculture beyond subsistence farming, even if we talk about financing agriculture until cows come home. Without security of tenure farmers cannot borrow money from banks to finance their operations. The truth of the matter is that without title and private finance, agriculture in Zimbabwe will continue limping and will largely be subsistence,” said Minister Biti.

He conceded that Government had done tremendously well to support farmers through various inputs support schemes and has to date injected US$250 million into agriculture.