Fungai Lupande Mashonaland Central Bureau

Vice President Constantino Chiwenga has said Government is making concerted efforts to ensure the country meets its winter wheat target of 80 000 hectares.

He said this during a field day held at Kunatsa Estates in Matepatepa as part of efforts to promote this year’s winter wheat programme and the production of traditional grain.

Kunatsa Estate, which is owned by Mr Doug Munatsi, has 300 hectares under wheat and 226 hectares under red sorghum.

VP Chiwenga said failure to meet the country’s wheat requirements had drained the country of foreign currency needed to support other sectors.

To this end, he said Government was committed to supporting 65 000 hectares of the national wheat target, with the remaining 15 000 hectares being supported by the private sector.

VP Chiwenga said he was expecting all eight rural provinces to produce wheat by leveraging on water sources and rich soils.

He said Government assigned senior officials to visit all provinces regularly to ensure the success of the winter wheat production.

The Vice President said Government was promoting production of traditional grains to ensure that farmers embraced the initiative and shift their mindset.

The traditional grain programme for the 2019/2020 summer cropping season was born out of the realisation that frequent droughts were now a reality.

“The commercial production of traditional grains as demonstrated by this farm is something that A2 farmers should embrace.

“Today, we saw red sorghum grown on 200 hectares under contract with Delta.

“Such cooperation between the private sector and our farming community is commendable and should be aggressively promoted.

“As Government, we have set the producer prices for traditional grains above that of maize to make their production more attractive and in the process change the mindset to achieve the desired shift in grain production and consumption patterns.”

VP Chiwenga said 15 000 tonnes of inputs, including 2 000 tonnes of certified seed had been distributed under the Presidential Inputs Scheme through the Grain Marketing Board (GMB).

Untapped potential in traditional value chain like shortage of certified traditional grain seed, he said, was an opportunity for farmers to pursue profitable partnerships with seed houses.

He implored seed houses to invest more in breeding of traditional grains varieties.

“There is immense opportunity for the private sector to fabricate equipment for the harvesting and processing of traditional grains as a home grown solution to plug the existing gap.

“There is much scope for cooperation between the private sector and our institutions of higher learning under Education 5.0 thrust,” said VP Chiwenga.

VP Chiwenga tasked Mashonaland Central to prioritise the resurfacing and expansion of the Matepatepa Road up to Lilstock Dam.

He visited the Fertiliser, Seed and Grain (FSG) depot in Bindura to check on the distribution of winter wheat inputs.