Harare (New Ziana)-President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Wednesday said the country has high hopes of attaining food security due to the various agricultural programmes put in place by government during the oncoming 2020 cropping season.

Speaking at State House where he received a belated 2019 Zimlife Agriculture Merit award for rallying the country towards food security, President Mnangagwa said one such government initiated programmes is that of the Pfumvudza concept for communal farmers.

Pfumvudza is a farming model based on conservation agriculture.

President Mnangagwa said the farming concepts in place for the 2020 cropping season, leave no one behind.

“I think the Pfumvudza one is more embracive, because under command agriculture we were addressing people who had some degree of empowerment already but with Pfumvudza no one is left behind. Those who have tractors and so on can go to the Command agriculture which is now smart agriculture under CBZ then we have the presidential input scheme for those with oxen or donkeys, can use them to plough and government will be supplying seed , fertiliser and chemicals.

“Those who don’t have tractors, who don’t have cattle, have hands they have Pfumvudza, we give them seed. So no one is left behind, no one will say we are not empowered. We believe now that this is now the solution to food shortages,” he said.

Speaking at the same event, Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement deputy minister Vangelis Haritatos concurred with the President saying the country expects food sufficiency at household level as a result of the Pfumvudza concept.

“Pfumvudza will target 1.8 million households with a target of 1.8 million metric tonnes of cereal crops to be grown and in addition about 360 000 metric tonnes of oil seed is what we are targeting,” he said.
Haritatos said under the Pfumvudza concept, it is recommended that a farmer does three plots.

“Every single household will have three plots or 0.06hectares each; two plots will be for cereal, which is either maize or traditional grains. “Maize in regions with higher rainfall; traditional grains in regions with lower rainfall. And the third plot will be sunflowers and soya beans which is oil seed,” he said.

Haritatos added: “And why three plots is very simple- first plot is for food security to our strategic grain reserve, second plot is for household security and third is a cash crop. It really answers everything at household level and impacts 1.8 million households”.

New Ziana