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Brenda Ziga Herald Reporter
Government must stop issuing agricultural import licences in order to enhance local production, Minister of State for Mashonaland Central Provincial Affairs Advocate Martin Dinha has said.
Addressing farmers at a tobacco stalk destruction field day held in Mvurwi yesterday, Minister Dinha said the land reform programme could never be a success if Government continued to allow agricultural import permits to be issued out.
“Government must indeed implement policy directives given by the President and by the Cabinet. We came out with a policy against importation of agricultural produce so that we promote import substitution by means of production, then enhancing productivity in our farms.
“The land reform programme can never be a success if we have a situation where Government continues to allow permits to be issued for importation of chickens from Brazil, and chickens from South Africa, and from around the region, when our farmers have capacity to produce,” he said.
Minister Dinha said demand should exist to stipulate local production.
“The reason often given is production in Zimbabwe is far lower than the national requirement, meaning that supply is lower than demand. But that is a foolish and nonsensical argument because for you to induce production, you certainly must induce demand.
“Demand is only induced if the supply is low. If we starve the market, certainly we will have production being enhanced.
“Let’s remove all the imported items that we can produce as Zimbabweans. That is how we can support our farmers. Our farmers are producing chickens, eggs and everything yet they do not have a market. They go to Mbare, the market is suppressed.
“They cannot realise the potential in terms of money out of their produce,” he said.
Online Reporter