By Zachary Gava
Harare, (New Ziana) – The success of Zimbabwe’s agricultural transformation must increasingly be captured, studied and replicated if the country is to convert individual farming achievements into a broader national development model, Vice President Dr. Kembo Mohadi has said.
He made the remarks in Harare on Thursday when he officially launched The Farming President: Precabe Farm Success Story, a new publication by Dr. Shame Mukoka documenting President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s agricultural journey and the development of his Precabe Farm in Kwekwe.
Rather than simply chronicling the fortunes of a single commercial farm, the book provides a case study on how investment, technology, determination and modern farming practices can unlock the productive potential of the country’s land, offering lessons for farmers, researchers, policymakers, students and investors.
Speaking at the launch held at the Heritage Village, Dr. Mohadi said documenting such experiences was important in building a body of locally generated knowledge capable of informing Zimbabwe’s agricultural future.
He said the country’s agricultural achievements should not remain isolated success stories, but should be studied and used to inspire innovation across the sector.
“By preserving this magnificent legacy in writing, you have made an enduring, indelible contribution to our national archive, our contemporary history, and the future evolution of agriculture across the African continent,” VP Mohadi said.
He challenged educational institutions to use the publication as a practical resource in developing a new generation of young people who view agriculture as a modern economic enterprise rather than a subsistence activity.
He added that universities, agricultural colleges and technical institutions should incorporate lessons from the Precabe experience into research and training, particularly in areas such as biotechnology, mechanization, irrigation and climate-smart agriculture.
“Let this text find its rightful place in your libraries, lecture halls, and research laboratories to stimulate home-grown innovation, biotechnology research, and practical agronomic learning,” he said.
The Vice President said Zimbabwe’s agricultural transformation was closely connected to the country’s wider development agenda, with agriculture playing a critical role in food security, industrialization, employment creation and foreign currency generation.
He said a productive agricultural sector also had the capacity to stimulate development beyond the farm through agro-processing, value addition, infrastructure development and the creation of rural employment opportunities.
“Agriculture as an industry is ubiquitous in most of the National Development Strategy 2 pillars, and remains the primary engine and catalyst for achieving our national vision, Vision 2030, which seeks to move our society towards an Upper-Middle-Income Economy,” Dr Mohadi said.
He said the experience documented at Precabe Farm demonstrated the importance of translating access to land into productive economic activity.
He also pointed to Government interventions such as Pfumvudza/Intwasa, the Presidential Inputs Scheme, irrigation expansion and mechanization as part of efforts to strengthen national food security and reduce the country’s vulnerability to climate-induced shocks.
“These strategic interventions have radically empowered hundreds of thousands of smallholder households, strengthened rural livelihoods, minimized rural-to-urban migration, and enhanced our national resilience against devastating, climate-induced phenomena such as El Niño,” he said.
The Vice President further called on the private sector and financial institutions to deepen their participation in agricultural value chains, arguing that the future of the sector depended on stronger linkages between production, finance, technology, processing and markets.
He said the lessons contained in The Farming President should therefore extend beyond the agricultural community and reach institutions responsible for education, research, finance and economic planning.
The publication comes at a time when Zimbabwe is seeking to consolidate agricultural productivity and strengthen domestic food production amid growing climate pressures and the need to reduce dependence on imports.
VP Mohadi commended Dr. Mukoka and Omer Publishing for recording the Precabe experience, saying the publication would help preserve an important chapter in the country’s contemporary agricultural history.
New Ziana
