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Harare Bureau
THE government is set to establish a special fund for value addition in agriculture and mining following a resolution to do so at the just-ended Zanu-PF 15th National People’s Conference held in Victoria Falls.
The party also called on the government to capacitate the Grain Marketing Board in order to pay farmers on time. Billions will be sourced for value addition and beneficiation in the agriculture sector while a yet to be disclosed amount will be availed to add value in mining.
Contacted to explain how the resolution of the ruling party was going to be operationalised, Deputy Minister for Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Cde Davis Marapira said: “The country needs at least $1 billion for value addition and for a proper irrigation network we need no less than $1bn to develop about 100,000 hectares of irrigation.”
He said banks should be at the forefront of providing the money with the help of the government.
“Agribank, which is our land bank, should be capacitated to finance agriculture so that it’s able to support agricultural activities by providing finance for inputs, implements, dams and so on,” said Marapira.
He said the first thing the government would do, would be to make sure GMB paid farmers so that they are be able to produce; provide irrigation infrastructure to maximise production and to add value to produce.
He said value addition would be undertaken on site, mostly at big irrigation schemes and growth points, with maize, soya beans, cotton and other primary commodities being converted to finished products.
“In this way we should be able to also create jobs in the rural areas and decongest our urban areas,” he said.
But he was also worried about the state of irrigation infrastructure which was outdated and inefficient.
“We should upgrade our irrigation systems so that they not only become efficient but also match the present climate change situation.
“At the moment we don’t have enough water but most of our irrigation schemes such as Nyanyadzi, Birchenough, Bonde and Mushandike use the furrow method which is outdated. We need state of the art centre pivot systems through which you can regulate the amount of water, for example we know that maize requires 700mm of water to mature and wheat requires 600mm. When we’re using the old methods we cannot regulate the amounts and in fact we will be wasting and that must change,” he said.
Mines Minister Cde Walter Chidhakwa said a figure would soon be availed on what the mining sector needs to roll out beneficiation and value addition.
He said there was need to set up platinum, chrome smelting and steel making plants among other activities.
He said that availing resources for value addition and beneficiation would be spearheaded by the government.
“We must set up resources to drive beneficiation in the interest of our country,” he said, explaining the historical context of value addition and beneficiation saying that colonialism had taken away that traditional function of old empires such as Mutapa and reduced African countries to exporters of raw materials.
derick.khumalo