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Andrew Muvishi–Mashonaland East Correspondent
Women farmers have been prominent in the success stories of land reform, with those farming in the Chief Svosve area, Marondera, contributing significantly to the growth in recent harvests.
Land reform corrected the colonial imbalances in the ownership of the means of production by giving back the land to the rightful indigenous owners.
Mashonaland East now boasts of productive farmers who have graduated from subsistence farming to commercial farming and are doing well.
Of late, female farmers are rising fast to the levels unmatched by their male counterparts in farming and have continuously contributed towards growing harvests.
One such commercial farmer is Mrs Sithabile Dube, whose farm is 15km south of Marondera.
Mrs Dube was resettled on 45 hectares and has been producing tonnes of maize and sugar beans.
At her farm, Mrs Dube constructed a modern house and drilled six boreholes and a compound which accommodates her six workers.
Apart from her modern house, she is in the process of building a farm office.
“I want to run this farm professionally and we have already registered a horticultural company,” said Mrs Dube.
The total arable hectarage has been used fully since 2019, with 15ha under maize, 2ha under sugar beans and 1ha under horticultural produce. Mrs Dube used proceeds from the farm to buy an electric transformer and built a water tank reservoir with capacity of carrying about 15 000 cubic litres.
She intends to make use of nearby stream to harvest water for winter cropping, particularly for wheat and horticulture production.
“From the profits I made from farming, I managed to develop this farm. I now want to increase the area under irrigation so I can produce crops throughout the year,” she said.
Mrs Dube said she learnt farming from interacting with fellow farmers which enabled cross-pollination of ideas and expertise.
“I now want to venture into animal husbandry and aquaculture,” she said.
“By this I intend also to teach and show women that they are capable of doing anything in farming, only if they dedicate their time.”
Mrs Dube said she was empowered by the Government through the command agriculture programme.
“I want to thank the Government for allocating me land and for providing inputs through command agriculture,” she said. “Last year I produced 60 tonnes of maize and three tonnes of sugar beans. I urge woman out there to take farming and Government inputs programmes seriously.
“During the land reform, I was one of the few women who applied for land.”
Apart from crop production, Mrs Dube is also into poultry production and she supplies 60 crates of eggs a week to a catering company in Harare.
“I have 500 layers and every day I collect about 460 eggs which I supply to Introwise catering in Harare every Wednesday.”
Another Marondera female farmer, Mrs Olga Mubai of Pondorosa Farm, has many success stories.
The 76-year-old horticulture farmer was nominated second runner-up in the category of horticulture at Marondera district agriculture show recently.
Mrs Mubai walked away with a wheelbarrow, knapsack sprayer and cash.
She said this was her fifth time to win at the district level and she was now eyeing to be nominated at provincial level.
“Hopefully my products will win at the provincial agriculture show,” she said. “I would like to thank the Government for allowing us to showcase our products; in this way it motivates some out there.”
Mrs Mubai said what men can do, women can do even better.
Online Reporter