SCORES of farmers from 10 selected wards in Shamva District took possession of multi
–purpose maize shellers at Madziwa Township on Wednesday from SOS Children’s Village
Zimbabwe.
Nyarai Majoni, SOS Bindura Location Manager handed over the shellers to the Minister of
State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution, Dr Monica Mavhunga, who in turn then handed
them over to the beneficiaries.
The farmers are from wards in both Shamva South and North political constituencies.
In her appreciation, Dr Mavhunga commended SOS for the gesture, saying NGO’s like SOS
Children’s Village were good examples of organisations the leadership was pleased to work
with.
She called other NGO’s to focus on their licensed roles and avoid meddling in politics.
Majoni said they decided to hand over the 17 shellers to the farmers after noticing that most
peasant farmers in the district have been doing well in their farming business but were facing
post-harvest problems that include losing a lot of the grain whilst shelling as well as incurring
costs by hiring shellers.
She said the traditional processes were time-consuming and labourious as well as
unproductive compared to mechanised processes.
Unlike the traditional shelling methods, the maize shellers minimise or eliminate damaged
maize seeds during shelling.
Traditionally, maize is shelled manually, which however takes a lot of time and requires more
labour, but it also comes with pain, and sometimes body injuries
Virginia Chidembo, a renowned peasant farmer in Ward 9 in Chidembo community, where
one of the shellers was donated, hailed the NGO for its gesture.
She said she was optimistic that she would be able to shell and pack her maize on time this
year.
“I am a big peasant farmer, producing in excess of 20 tonnes of maize every year. My
problem usually came post-harvest. We were shelling using traditional means all along but,
now that we have the sheller closer, we expect changes,” she said.
Besides shelling maize, the same shellers can also work on soya beans, millet and sorghum as
well as ground nuts.
