Cde Auxillia Mnangagwa

Patrick Chitumba Midlands Bureau Chief
THE government is crafting a “use it or lose it policy” to make it mandatory for authourities to take over and redistribute underutilised land, Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Deputy Minister Cde Davis Marapira has said.

Addressing farmers at a field day held at Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s Precabe farm in the Sherwood Block, Kwekwe, on Friday Cde Marapira said people who benefited from the land reform programme should utilise their land or risk losing it.

Cde Marapira said it was time the country starts reaping rewards from the land reform programme which saw the previously marginalised locals being allocated prime farming land. He said Zimbabweans should take a leaf from VP Mnangagwa who was fully utilising the land he was allocated.

The VP’s farm has 115 hectares under winter wheat and 20 hectares under maize. There is another part under horticulture.

Cde Marapira said VP Mnangagwa had learnt fast from President Mugabe who is fully utilising his land.

He said Precabe farm was also a clear evidence of leaders who lead by example.

The deputy minister urged farmers to emulate the two leaders.

“Farmers who were given land under the national land policy should use it. If President Mugabe gave you the land, you must utilise it. The government is working on having a policy on land repossession so that those people who got land under the land reform programme and are not using it lose it,” he said.

He said if every farmer who benefited from the land redistribution was fully utilising the land, the country could not be importing maize.

Cde Marapira said the government was worried about the average maize yield per hectare which he said was very low at 0,6 tonnes per hectare.

He said at Precabe farm the average yield per hectare was 10 tonnes which other farmers should strive to attain.

The deputy minister urged banks to support farmers by advancing loans for inputs and equipment at low interest rates.

“Access to agriculture inputs is key to achieving food and nutrition security. I therefore urge the banks to avail affordable and long term loans,” he said.

VP Mnangagwa’s wife and Zanu-PF deputy secretary for environment and tourism, Cde Auxillia Mnangagwa, said the success story at their farm came after learning from President Mugabe and the First Lady Cde Grace Mugabe.

Cde Mnangagwa said together with VP Mnangagwa, they were hands on as they took time to work on the farm.