Agriculture remains one of the key sectors in the quest to achieve Vision 2030 of transforming the country into an upper middle-class economy, Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement Minister Dr Anxious Masuka has said.
He said farmers should take advantage of a promising 2020-2021 farming season to end food insecurity.
Dr Masuka was addressing provincial ministers from across the country who are meeting in Gweru to strategise on the 2020-2021 farming season.
He said the country’s Agriculture Recovery Plan was on course and challenged the ministers to anchor their Provincial GDPs on agriculture.
Dr Masuka said there were over 1,8 million households in the country, who were actively involved in different agricultural activities daily, a figure which he said if properly supported, could ensure that the country regains its status as the breadbasket of southern Africa.
“We have 1,8 million rural households representing 70 percent of the population who are involved daily agriculture,” said Dr Masuka.
“For the attainment of vision 2030, they therefore ought to be mainstreamed in the mainstream economy so that they too ca can be layers as we journey along the vision 20130 so it is both a challenge and an obligation for us all to begin to make the systematic way forward to make sure we increase agricultural production and increase profitability in farms.”
He said farmers should begin to take agriculture as a lucrative business riding on Government’s full support of the sector through various Agriculture Recovery Plan such as the Pfumvudza programme.
Dr Masuka said provinces were given targets under the 2020-2021 farming season and should take advantage of a promising farming season to achieve set targets as the country journey towards attaining the vision 2030.
“So, agriculture ought to be a business, a viable and entertaining. It’s both an art and a science,” he said.
Dr Masuka said under government’s National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1) agriculture was a very critical component towards the country’s development agenda.