Farmers urged to shun donor dependency
AGRICULTURE deputy minister (Crops, Mechanisation and Irrigation) Davis Marapira has urged plotholders at the Ngezi-Mamina irrigation scheme in Mhondoro to desist from relying on government and donor dependency and come up with their own strategies to revive their scheme which is on the verge of collapse after accumulating a $200 000 electricity bill.
By Phyllis Mbanje
Marapira made the remarks during his recent tour of the irrigation scheme when farmers pleaded for government and donor intervention.
“We cannot keep on extending the borrowing bowl and farmers need to change their mindset of merely receiving without coming up with ways that produce results,” he said.
Marapira also threatened to evict all non-performing farmers from the country’s major irrigation schemes and replace them with business-minded farmers. The Ngezi-Mamina project is one of the schemes which have failed to achieve government’s objective to improve the livelihoods of rural communities and guarantee them food security.
The irrigation scheme started operating in 1994.
“The scheme has a sprinkler system in which water is first pumped into a balancing tank at a high point and then fed into the sprinkler system by gravity,” said committee member Bernard Gara.
Meanwhile, Mamina Dam is being grossly under-utilised and is only providing irrigation to less than 240 hectares of land and yet has the capacity to support more than 700 hectares of irrigated land over three years even if the area does not receive any rains over the period.