Empower women farmers: Wadyajena

Chairman of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Lands, Agriculture, Climate, Water and Rural Resettlement Cde Justice Mayor Wadyajena yesterday called for cheap inputs for smallholder farmers to boost productivity.

He said there was need to empower women as they had the potential to transform agriculture into an engine for economic recovery.

Cde Wadyajena, who is Gokwe-Nembudziya Member of the National Assembly, said this in Madrid, Spain, where he is leading a delegation of Zimbabwean legislators attending an inaugural Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Global Parliamentary Summit against Hunger and Malnutrition.

“To achieve zero hunger, women must be empowered in this process. The world over we have heard hard evidence of the role they play in agricultural transformation.

“Women make up over 40 percent of the agriculture labour force worldwide. In our country, Zimbabwe they make up over 70 percent of farmers,” said Cde Wadyajena.

He said food security was a national security issue hence the need to support farmers particularly those who had potential but were financially disadvantaged.

“Parliament’s role is to craft and align laws that promote smallholder growth and to safeguard the interests of the country’s farming communities,” said Cde Wadyajena.

He emphasised the need of sharing knowledge and global best practice in order to advance the Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger.

Cde Wadyajena said the new dispensation led by President Mnangagwa had sound ideas aimed at ending                                    hunger.

The summit pledges to “end hunger, achieve food security and improve nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture” in order to build a world in which “no one is left    behind”.

The Global Parliamentary Summit against Hunger and Malnutrition is a joint initiative of the Spanish Parliament, the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation and     FAO.

The summit builds on the work carried out by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation and FAO since 2006, with the support of the Latin America and the Caribbean Parliamentary Front against Hunger, within the Hunger-Free Latin America and the Caribbean Initiative, incorporating the legislative powers in the fight against hunger and   malnutrition.