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Ranga Mataire
Group Political Editor
The Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development came out tops in the 2022 performance results for Cabinet Ministers and senior Government officials. Both Minister Anxious Masuku and Permanent Secretary Dr John Basera were named best performers in their respective designations. As the country commemorates Independence Day today, our Group Political Editor, Ranga Mataire (R.M), had a wide-ranging conversation with Dr Basera (J.B) on how the land (which was one of the major grievances of the liberation struggle) was transforming lives of ordinary people and contributing to the general economic development of the country.
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R.M: Congratulations for coming out the best in terms of performance and surpassing your target goals in the fiscal year 2022. What can you attribute the milestones that resulted in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development coming out tops?
J.B: Agriculture is the backbone of the economy of Zimbabwe with potential to contribute up to 20 percent of GDP and providing livelihoods to approximately 70 percent of the country’s population. The sector’s performance influence and has ripple effects to the rest of the economic sectors. The Ministry’s performance was anchored by a vision and clear roadmap that resonates with the aspirations enshrined in His Excellency’s, the President, Dr E.D Mnangagwa’s Vision 2030, National Development Strategy 1, Sustainable Development Goals, Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Plan and Africa Agenda 2063.
Core to this journey are the various game-changing interventions and blueprints namely; Agriculture Recovery Plan (2020-2024); Agriculture and Food Systems Transformation Strategy (2020 -2024); Horticulture Recovery and Growth Plan (2020 -2025); Livestock Recovery and Growth Plan (2020-2025); Accelerated Irrigation Rehabilitation and Development Plan (2021-2026); and Integrated Agricultural Information Management System (AIMS) (2020-2025), inter alia.
These blueprints are engendering an inclusive agricultural transformation that achieves the following outcomes- security, import substitution, diversified exports, enhanced value addition, employment creation and improved incomes and standards of living in line with Vision 2030.
At the centre of the success story is a dedicated workforce of over 20 000 men and women in the Ministry, inclusive of parastatals staff complement. These are the agents for agricultural transformation. The motivated and capacitated extension team, especially the 7 000 frontline extension officers who are the real transformation agents enabled the Ministry to achieve the success feats.
In light of their overarching importance, the Ministry took a deliberate stance in 2020 to capacitate and motorise all extension officers at two levels; namely physical motorisation and mind-set motorisation.
The successes could not have been achieved had this aspect not been addressed. Further, team work and consistent monitoring of programmes ensured that all plans, strategies and interventions were on track.
Support from other MDAs (Ministries, departments and agencies), especially the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development and Office of the President and Cabinet deserves special recognition.
Our programming was buttressed by a strong belief that Zimbabwe can prevail agriculturally amid the 3Cs challenge namely; Climate change, Covid-19 and the Conflict in Eastern Europe.
This prompted leadership at the Ministry to reflect and think critically about the need to produce enough food for the people of Zimbabwe and to generate surplus.
As such, the sector’s trajectory is always targeting nothing less than a sustained growth and transformation of the sector anchored on seamless transitioning of farmers in general from subsistence-oriented farming to commercial farming for surplus and commerce. In all its programming, the Ministry is envisaging the transformation of over 360 000 A1 farmers and 20 000 A2 farmers into serious business men and women. Likewise, the 3 million smallholder farmers are steadily transiting from largely being subsistence farmers to surplus and commercially oriented through the religious implementation of the ambitious Rural Development 8.0 programming.
R.M: What is the ministry doing to empower farmers both peasant and resettled to ensure maximum production?
J.B: The Ministry adopted a comprehensive approach aimed at increasing production and productivity across all farming enterprises and sub-sectors irrespective of landholding.
The approach involves a cocktail of measures namely Command Agriculture/NEAPS targeting commercial, A1 and A2 farmers, Presidential Input Support Scheme targeting the smallholder households, joint ventures and contract farming frameworks, among other public-private partnerships in irrigation and mechanisation development.
Resultantly, the agriculture sector has grown in leaps and bounds since the advent of the Second Republic, positively responding to the support rendered and initiatives across various crop and livestock value chains.
Of utmost importance, at grassroots level is the Rural Development 8.0, which comprises the following eight Presidential interventions targeting over 3 million smallholder farmers to increase production and productivity:
- The Presidential Climate-Proofed Input Scheme, popularly known as Pfumvudza/Intwasa targeting three million farming beneficiaries in the rural areas. Farmers are supported under the Productive Social program with a standard input package consisting of seed, fertilisers, fall armyworm chemicals and extension support.
- The Presidential Cotton Programme- a productive social support extended to 520 000 beneficiaries supported with a standard cotton input package targeting cotton growing areas. Since the advent of the New Dispensation, the cotton sub-sector has grown from being nearly a ‘dead sector’ in 2015/16 period to a USD90million (137 000 t) cotton export sector supporting half a million households/year.
- The Presidential Blitz Tick Grease Scheme, extended to one million cattle owning households, each receiving one to three kilogrammes of tick grease.
- The Presidential Rural Development Programme targets to drill one borehole in each of the 35 000 rural villages in the country and establishing commercial integrated one-hectare farm business Hubs with four components- village nutrition/income garden, fish ponds, village free ranch poultry run, village orchard, for a co-operative of 50 women and youth led households;
- The Presidential Community Fisheries Scheme which aims to provide fish ponds in all irrigation schemes and integrated village farm-business centres.
- The Presidential Poultry Scheme is supporting 3 million beneficiaries each with 10 (4–6-week-old) chicks to ensure household nutrition and income security by year 2025;
- Presidential Goat Scheme supporting 600 000 vulnerable households with bucks and does, targeting to up-scale the nutrition and income security at household level;
- The irrigation-based Vision 2030 Accelerator Model to support several households, resuscitating irrigation schemes, adopting a scheme business management model which is fronted by the Agriculture Rural Development Authority to ensure irrigation schemes viability. The irrigation resuscitation effort is being funded from the fiscus under the 200ha/district/year program as well as efforts by the development agencies such as IFAD-SIRP, UNDP-GCF climate smart proofing initiatives in smallholder farming communities.
The countrywide adoption of Pfumvudza/Intwasa has seen maize productivity levels increasing by over 180 percent to national average of 1.4 t/ha from 0.5 t/ha, prior.
The Pfumvudza model termed “the village philosophy” by President Mnangagwa, earned Africa-wide recognition at Dakar 2 Feed Africa Summit held in January and all African Heads of State were enjoined to emulate and replicate the same concept.
The Government also promulgated a policy position wherein every off-taker of agricultural commodities is obliged to support local production of at least 40 percent of what they require annually. Such kind of localisation of agricultural value chains support the “grow local and buy local” mantra that resonates with the import substitution thrust. This is strategic in driving more investments in production support by the private sector.
The Ministry is driven by the need to ensure maximum land utilisation, which is indeed the hallmark of consolidating the gains of the land reform programme, as such, it is also finalising the Zimbabwe Agriculture Investment Plan and the Agriculture Investment Prospectus to attract more investment into the sector. Resultantly, private sector participation in food production enabled the country in attaining food security with a slant towards food self-sufficiency with positive spin-offs in employment creation (downstream and upstream), increased raw materials supply to the industry and import substitution which result in significant savings in foreign currency every year.
A framework of crowding in the participation of banks in supporting local primary production was consummated under the banner of National Enhanced Agricultural Productivity Scheme (NEAPS) and rolled out in the 2020/21 period. Teaming up of banks and the private sector including the Food Crops Contractors Association led to a combined contribution of 85 percent (close to 70 000Ha) of the record wheat planted (80 000ha) in 2022. This trend also subsists across other sub-sectors in the food production sub-sector.
Tobacco output grew marginally by 1 percent from 211 100 219 kilogrammes produced during the 2020/21 production season to 212 711 370kgs (from lesser hectarage) in the 2021/22 season.
The hectarage under tobacco increased 19 percent to 131 656 ha in 2022 comparable to 110 770 ha achieved in 2021. This is in direct response to the religious implementation of the key touch points in the Tobacco Value Chain Transformation Plan (TVCTP) launched in 2021.
The TVCTP (2021-2025) seeks to secure the future and consolidate the important role of the tobacco value chain to agriculture and the economy through sustainable intensification of tobacco production to 300 million kilogrammes; enhancing transparency and fair tobacco marketing, expanding into new markets in the Middle East and reforming, restructuring and rebuilding existing institutions in order to optimise tobacco value chain financing so as to raise and optimise the net export benefits from tobacco from the current 12.5 percent of exports to 70 percent by 2025.
The Ministry is implementing the Accelerated Irrigation Rehabilitation and Development Programme aiming to increase area under functional irrigation from 150 000ha prior to 2020 to 350 000 ha by year 2025.
As of December 2022, the country had achieved 193 000 ha under functional irrigation. Flagship programmes such as Smallholder Irrigation Revitalisation Programme (SIRP), Turnkey Irrigation Programme, NEAPS (National Enhanced Agricultural Productivity Scheme) supported by Maka Resources and CBZ Bank and Pedstock Facility administered through the Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC), are aimed at harnessing the country’s water bodies potential of irrigating over 2 million hectares. The Ministry is aggressively exploring ways to revitalise all the 450 smallholder irrigation schemes totalling 26 000ha and ARDA is the designated scheme manager to co-ordinate all scheme businesses and to make them viable and sustainable.
The Ministry is seized with speeding up mechanisation programmes (importation of farm machinery and equipment) in order to mechanise and modernise the sector by increasing the tillage and combining capacities by approximately 300 000 hectares and 200 000 hectares, respectively.
Several flagship mechanisation programmes to name just four (4); (Belarus phase 1, Belarus phase 2, John Deere Facility, William Bain Mechanisation Facility) were consummated and are being rolled out to upscale mechanisation levels in the sector targeting A1 and A2 farmers.
These programmes are administered through banks; CBZ, AFC, Ecobank, Stanbic and BancABC who on-lend the equipment to farmers on an end user pay basis over tenor period ranging from two to five years. Government created two agricultural equipment leasing companies namely AFC Leasing company and an Agricultural Leasing vehicle through ARDA. These institutions were capitalised with equipment worth over USD 22 million to hire out mechanisation services to farmers.
A Smallholder Mechanisation Development Alliance (SMDA) was created aiming to mechanise the smallholder sector and over 600 lead farming households are initially targeted in the first pilot phase through AFC and its partners in the alliance. The Ministry is at an advanced stage to roll out the Commercialised Village Tillage Programme wherein each ward will have a tractor and implements managed by Village Tillage Committees working with Government departments with a view to ease the burden of accessing tillage services by smallholder farmers.
R.M: Horticulture is Zimbabwe’s fifth-largest agricultural export earner, contributing significantly to the agricultural GDP. What is the current state of the horticulture industry, which of late has faced a myriad of challenges?
J.B: Interventions in the horticulture sector are guided by the Horticulture Growth and Recovery Plan. The Horticulture Recovery and Growth Plan (HRGP) has two broad and mutually reinforcing focus areas: (1) a Private Sector-driven recovery of the conventional horticulture sub-sector and, (2) more importantly, a robust, inclusive, sustainable and transformative rural horticulture subsector, anchored on the Presidential Horticulture Scheme with the following components (a) Household Tree Planting (10 fruit trees, targeting 2 million households) (b) Village Nutrition/Income Gardens (c) Ward-based Youth Vegetable and Horticulture Gardens and Orchards and (d) Schools Vegetable and Horticulture projects (e) mainstreaming indigenous vegetables and fruits (f) research, development and innovation in production, processing and value addition and beneficiation (f) domestic and export market development for exotic and indigenous vegetables and fruits and (g) multi-stakeholder collaboration and coordination.
The religious implementation of the Horticulture Recovery Plan has seen hectarage under horticultural production increasing by 4.6 percent to 119 000 ha in 2022 from 113 000 ha in 2021.
The horticulture sector is expanding given the commitment by the Government and the subsequent successful establishment and implementation by the Ministry of the US$30 million Horticulture Export Revolving Fund, which is administered by commercial banks, where horticulture exporters get funding facilities to support primary horticulture production for exports. A specific example is the export blueberry production which surged 34 percent from 3500 tonnes in 2021 to 4700 tonnes in 2022.
The horticulture blueberry sub-sector is poised to reach an output of 6 500 tonnes by end of 2023 from a planned land area of 470 ha.
The same growth trend subsists on all the other horticulture sub sectors. A total of 57 283 tonnes citrus produce was exported in 2022 with the breakdown of 2 365 tonnes lemon, 2 489 tonnes grapefruit, 180 tonnes soft citrus and 52 tonnes oranges.
To date, the Presidential horticulture scheme has supported smallholder farmers with 3.1 million vegetable combos comprising tomato, onion, carrot, rape and cabbage seeds, whilst the number of village nutrition gardens are now at 7091 covering an area of 6278 hectares.
R.M: Zimbabwe intends to ship oranges, lemons and grapefruit to China as the fruits from the country are famed for their low prices and high quality. How far has Zimbabwe gone in meeting the requirements demanded by China for Zimbabwe to export fruits to that country?
J.B: The deal between Zimbabwe and China on the exportation of citrus produce from Zimbabwe to China has been concluded and this has seen the country diversifying its export markets. The deal will see Zimbabwe capitalising on its comparative advantages in producing and marketing citrus produce like oranges, grapefruit, lemon, mandarin, among others to China. Zimbabwe has the advantage of good natural conditions that are beneficial for producing low cost, sweet and juicy citrus and the country’s marketing period is also different from the domestic citrus market in China, which can meet a certain demand in the Chinese market. The trade protocol cements trade relations between the two nations and opens the door for other products (blueberry, avocados and nuts) and will lead to an increase in agricultural exports contribution to the export earnings.
Citrus from Zimbabwe is of high quality and has penetrated foreign markets easily including the Chinese market. Unfortunately, current production is still far less than what is being demanded in the Chinese markets and in 2022, exports of citrus were about 57 283 tonnes. Annual demand for the Chinese citrus market is over 48 million tonnes.
The Presidential fruit tree programme that involves distributing 10 fruit trees per household including citrus trees will go a long way in complementing private sector efforts in pooling quantities required to meet the market demands. Government has invited the private sector to establish the marketing and trade infrastructure that include setting up aggregation centres in production clusters. The Agricultural Marketing Authority is expected to work closely with ZimTrade to deliver on this key enabler.
Government is availing incentives to investors in the fruit production sub-space including citrus and this include resource mobilisation and harnessing of patient pension funds through supporting initiatives such as according such projects National Project Status as well as Prescribed Asset Status that confers investors certain privileges, advantages that boost business and access to capital.
Other efforts in the horticulture space include resuscitation of citrus orchards throughout the country, setting a citrus nursery base at Henderson Research Station and developing cold chain systems. Agritex has already established 14 nurseries bases to roll out a fruit tree for life program to establish 9.3 million fruit trees across the country by 2025.
R.M: How did Zimbabwe manage to achieve wheat self-sufficiency in 2022 and the plan for 2023?
J.B: The Ministry managed to achieve wheat self-sufficiency on account of a great plan that sought to attain flour and wheat self-sufficiency at all cost in light of the geo-political developments in eastern Europe. In this respect, the Ministry focused on localisation of the wheat value chain that entails an inward looking approach that enjoined every key stakeholder to put hands on the deck to successfully birth this record level crop. A clear aim was to target to grow wheat on 75 000ha and support farmers to ensure an average yield that is at least 4.8 t/ha.
Partnerships and collaborations with stakeholders made the Ministry to surpass its target by 7 percent and achieve 80 883ha of wheat in 2022.
The area planted jumped by a 22 percent margin from 66 434ha achieved in 2021. The production output increased by 25 percent from over 335 000 tonnes in 2021 to 375 131 tonnes in 2022 against a national requirement of 360 000 tonnes. This production figure has never been achieved since 1962, when wheat was first grown in Zimbabwe.
In the current winter wheat season, the Ministry is targeting to achieve 85 000ha of wheat to produce 408 000 tonnes.
The programming is still the same where the key players will contribute to this target production.
The key players include the NEAPS programme (being implemented by CBZ- Agro-Yield, AFC Commercial Bank and AFC Land and Development Bank), Presidential Input Scheme (PIP), Private Contractors (Food Crops Contractors Association members is the main player) and self-financed farmers.
The Ministry will also roll out The Zimbabwe Emergency Food Production Programme amounting to 8 134Ha, targeting 39 000 tonnes of wheat.
This programme is funded through a grant from the African Development Bank, thanks to the country’s engagement and re-engagements efforts.
R.M: One of the perennial problems of farmers is the delay in payment from the Grain Marketing Board. How is the Ministry dealing with this challenge to motivate farmers to continue producing?
J.B:The Ministry has adopted a liberalised marketing approach where Government funded farmers are the only ones obliged to sell their produce to the Grain Marketing Board. The Ministry is currently amending S.I 188 of 2021 that regulates the marketing of wheat and barley to allow free marketing of wheat except for the contracted crop.
The Government has also facilitated and supported the establishment of the Warehouse Receipt System under the Zimbabwe Mercantile Exchange (ZMX) to facilitate the marketing of commodities on boarded onto these platforms. The floor producer price to be announced by the Government will be only for commodities contracted by the Government which will be marketed through the Grain Marketing Board. These arrangements will smoothen the marketing processes and will not put much pressure on the fiscus as was in the past. The Government through the Grain Marketing Board will remain the buyer of last resort for farmers.
R.M: Briefly outline the results of the Land Audit report undertaken between December 14 2021 and January 14 2022. How is the land audit assisting the Ministry of Lands and Agriculture in ensuring optimal use of land by resettled farmers?
J.B: The Land Audit report covers comprehensively production and agrarian issues that require urgent redress. Land audit is an ongoing process and is instrumental in assisting the Ministry to ensure that every inch of land is put to productive use for the benefit of the sector and the country at large. The land audit assists the Ministry to identify and rectify multiple farm ownership, boundary disputes, land utilization and challenges facing farming communities in terms of land utilization. Corrective measures are being implemented hence the general upward trend in land utilisation.
At the moment, the Ministry is seized with implementing the recommendations of the first-round land audit done in 2019, chief among them being creation of a land and development bank to support farmers with concessionary funding, building capacity in the farming communities through availing irrigation and mechanisation facilities, and upscaling extension services support.
One of the major constraints to the expansion and modernisation of agriculture is the low level and limited use of mechanisation especially by smallholder farmers. Provision of agricultural mechanisation services allow leapfrogging from current production and productivity levels across all agricultural enterprises. Mechanisation services are among the critical ingredient services crucial to increase production and productivity. The effect is more pronounced in the smallholder farming sub-sector. As of 2021, Zimbabwe had 7 895 tractors in the country representing a 19.7 percent mechanisation rate. Since then, there has been renewed efforts and commitment to increase mechanisation capacity.
Collaboration and partnerships with the private sector increased the number of tractors to the current estimated 12 800 units, representing a 32 percent mechanisation rate. Similarly, the combined harvester fleet also grew by 60 percent from 171 to 274 units against a national requirement of 600 units. The Ministry estimates to surpass the 60 percent agricultural mechanisation target in all critical machinery and equipment by 2030. Under the mechanisation programme, Zimbabwe has witnessed an increase in the area planted to crops and has contributed towards increased yields, mainly due to the precision with which the farming tasks have been accomplished.
A sizable number of farmers have so far and are still benefiting from about seven exciting and highly impactful mechanisation facilities. These include the US$51 million John Deere facility (tractors and disc harrows), the US$51 million Belarus Phase 1 facility (tractors), the US$52 million Belarus Phase 2 facility (tractors and disc harrows), the US$20 million Bain New Holland facility (tractors, ploughs, disc harrows), the US$169 million Belarus Phase 3 facility (tractors) and the US$5 million smallholder (Pfumvudza/Intwasa) mechanization facility (two-wheel tractor, ripper tines) and the USD6 million Local Manufacture Mechanisation facility (disc harrows, ploughs, ridgers). As a way of promoting transparency, accountability and sustainability in the distribution of mechanization equipment, all equipment is distributed by banks on behalf of the dealers, Government and manufacturers.
The challenge has been that people look at land audits from a negative perspective but the Ministry is actually using these reports to identify farmers who require capacity building. Where land utilisation has been flagged as a challenge, the Ministry has expanded programmes to make sure every piece of land is utilised.
The Ministry is also promoting Joint Ventures between investors and farmers with underutilised land. A cocktail of new measures, now regarded as a new policy position regulating Joint Venture, is in essence meant to enhance the bankability of the arrangements.
Joint Ventures enhance access to agricultural inputs for farm owners with poor resource endowments at the same time also ensuring open access to land for investment by investors without actually owning a piece of land.
To widely promote Joint Ventures, the Ministry is establishing an electronic Farmer-Investor Matchmaking Platform (eFIMM).
This is a platform that links an investor and a landholder in a regulated manner and potentially leads to achieving maximised land utilisation. This potentially expands the area under agricultural production affording Zimbabwe to grow her agricultural GDP and ultimately her national economy. It is also an opportunity to enhance the flow of investment into the agricultural space driving agricultural transformation, rural industrialisation and ultimately rural development.
Ultimately, the Ministry endeavours to leave no one, no place, no village, no ward and no demography behind in its quest to transform rural farming households and transit them into viable sustainable commercial farming enterprises. This is Vision 2030, and the Agriculture sector is indeed a Vision 2030 Accelerator.
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