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Urban farmers have a huge role to play to ensure the country’s food security remains sustainable, Zanu-PF Women’s League member Cde Maidei Mujuru has said.
In an interview after the sack potato farming project tour in Stoneridge, Harare, last Friday, Cde Mujuru — who is also the organiser and financier of the programme — said women should devise plans and farm potatoes on their backyards to ensure there was constant supply of the crop whose demand was high.
The project has been rolled out in Mbare and Sunningdale.
“We are trying to do this after the ban on the importation of potatoes and supplement our staple crop which is maize. Local farmers were deprived of a market by the genetically modified crops which have been coming from the likes of South Africa and Brazil,” she said.
Cde Mujuru said she was merely following the noble vision of Zanu-PF to empower the marginalised in society.
“It is efficient and you can place them in a garden which does not require a lot of land. Sunningdale constituency has been like a ghost since the Margaret Dongo-era and people feel they have been left out despite being in an urban area.”
“The programme has been successful and people have accepted it and the response has been overwhelming. They should be independent and be occupied and do this for the benefit of their families,” Cde Mujuru said.
She said women should sustain themselves and emphasised that the project was for women of all age groups and said the programme will roll out to other cities such as Bulawayo and Chiredzi.
Some beneficiaries of the project applauded the innovation for churning out the empowerment programme saying they now understood the concept of potatoes since they were not beneficiaries of the land reform programme.
The project has different potato varieties which include BP1, Amythest and Jasper among others.
The varieties range from the late maturity ones which takes between 17 to 19 weeks and the medium early white flower which matures in 12-15 weeks.
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