President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Saturday opened up on his
other passion — farming — saying he is hands-on and visits his farm at the
slightest of opportunities from his busy schedule.
Speaking on the sidelines of a familiarisation tour of his
Pricabe Farm in Sherwood, Kwekwe, by a delegation led by Rwanda Ambassador to
Zimbabwe Mr James Musoni, President Mnangagwa showed a rare grasp of operations
at his farm, proving he is indeed hands-on.
The familiarisation tour was part of the two countries’
exchange programmes lined up in an
earlier meeting between President Mnangagwa and his Rwandan counterpart,
President Paul Kagame, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The President is also into fish farming and market
gardening and is currently preparing for winter wheat production.
His farming ingenuity is evident in how he mooted Command
Agriculture, a specialised import substitution programme that has changed
Zimbabwe from grain imports to self-sustainance. Command Agriculture, under the
leadership of President Mnangagwa, then Vice President, in 2016, initially
covered maize but has since been expanded to other sub-sectors, where its
success story is the talk of the country and beyond.
In its first year of operation the programme, which was
aimed at producing 2,2 million tonnes of maize — enough to meet the country’s
1,8 million tonne demand — surpassed all expected after more than 4 million
tonnes of maize was produced, a feat that had not been achieved for years.
The bumper harvest in 2017 saw the country running out of
storage space forcing the GMB to open satellite depots to create space for
grain.
And President Mnangagwa showed how he gets his hands soiled
— for the figurative cause.
“Every Saturday and Sunday I come to the farm when I am
available. I also have two brothers who are always at the farm. I am not a
cellphone farmer.
“My brothers move around researching on the latest
technology and how it can be used at the farm. As a result I am expecting
between 12 and 14 tonnes per hectare in terms of maize.
“We do, however, use cellphones in our production purposes.
I have a pumping station that serves nine pivots collecting water from a
distance of 7 kilometres and that is when I use a cellphone to operate the
latest technology,” he said.
President Mnangagwa said the farm was now targeting
establishing an agribusiness to process some of the produce of the farm.
A farmer par excellence, President Mnangagwa has
transformed Pricabe Farm into a production hub of crops ranging from soyabeans
to maize, now ready to be harvested.
He urged other farmers in the country to be hands-on and to
use technology to maximise their production.
“It is all about technology, moving around seeing
technology and how to apply it because what is necessary is that each hectare
must produce more.
“Our land cannot expand anymore. We have to make use of
technology to utilise what we have to ensure that we realise more from it. When
you have modern technology, you can maximise in terms of production and that
way agriculture becomes profitable,” he said.
Ambassador Musoni applauded President Mnangagwa for leading
by example and being hands-on.
“We appreciate His Excellency for allowing us time to visit
his farm. The technology we have seen here is a challenge to us as a country.
President Mnangagwa is a hands-on leader who shows how it is done and that is
true leadership,” said Ambassador Musoni.
He said there were a lot of exchange programmes lined up
between the two countries.
“We are looking forward to exchanging ideas between our two
countries. There is a lot that we can learn from each other. I am impressed
that President Mnangagwa is in the process of reforming a one-stop centre for
ease of doing business, the same model that made our economy grow.”
Rwanda is one of the fastest growing economies in Africa
and the ties between Kigali and Harare are expected to strengthen with a number
of exchange programmes lined up.
Small to Medium Enterprises Minister Sithembiso Nyoni,
Midlands Provincial Affairs Minister Larry Mavima, Zanu-PF Midlands chairperson
Daniel Mackenzie Ncube were among of the top Government and party officials who
attended the function. Herald
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