Youths urged to play bigger role in agriculture

Eltina Chagonda

YOUNG people have been urged to take a leading role in agriculture and utilise their potential in farming.

The call was made by Deputy Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development, Vangelis Haritatos, during a field day recently held at Nkuzana Farm in Mazowe District.

“As a Ministry, the thrust is to create employers rather than employees and, through such initiatives, the country will soon be in a position to unlock the potential of our youths in the agricultural sector.

“Finance is one of the limiting factors in agriculture.

“The Government has responded by opening opportunities for non-collateral lending for agriculture, through the National Enhanced Agricultural Productivity Scheme, and the recently-launched Agricultural Finance Corporation Scheme,” he said.

Dep Min Haritatos said Government’s intention was to implement more irrigation schemes,

“Government has an ambitious plan to bring 350 000 hectares of land under irrigation by 2024.

“Youths should take advantage of the Government-supported irrigation schemes, available through banks, to finance their irrigation activities.

“The mechanisation and general modernisation of agriculture are important to generate the requisite efficiency and increased production, productivity and profitability.

“In this regard, the Government has mechanisation schemes currently underway and accessible through banks, where over 3 000 tractor units and over 300 combine harvesters, are being brought into the country.

“I encourage youths to take advantage of this enabling environment to grow their agricultural businesses. “This support for agriculture is unprecedented,” he said.

He added:

“The Ministry recently launched the Agricultural Education for Development 5.0(AE4D 5.) Curriculum replacing the Agricultural Education (AE2.0), for all the eight Agricultural Colleges.

“This module focuses on producing strong entrepreneurs from our colleges.

“Furthermore, with the re-organisation of the 450 irrigation schemes countrywide, we expect 450 managers to be employed by ARDA on these schemes by December 2022.”