News / Local
Mnangagwa admits Command Agriculture blunders
26 Apr 2017 at 05:07hrs | Views
Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa today admitted that government made several mistakes in implementing the Command Agriculture project.
Command agriculture was launched last year under a $500 million fund.
In March, Agriculture minister Joseph Made told the national assembly that initially, the command agriculture programme had targeted to raise $500 million for 400 000 hectares, but that amount could not be raised.
Addressing guests at the 11th international business conference at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) this morning in Bulawayo, Mnangagwa said 'we have listened to the criticisms' and measures would be taken to rectify the errors.
"We are already preparing for summer, we listened to criticisms from both private sector and the community. we are correcting those deficiencies, we value your comments and criticisms as they make us better.
"By the way Command Agriculture does not mean we command people to go to the farms, we ask people to come to the programme voluntarily" he said.
He said despite the challenges faced, a bumper maize harvest is expected.
Higher Education minister Jonathan Moyo has been the lead critic of the project despite being a beneficiary.
According to Moyo, the scheme 'is at best premature and at worst needlessly false, primitive and a non-starter.
Mnangagwa said the important lesson emerging from the 2016/2017 summer agriculture season was that there is need to maximise on the distribution of inputs for the 2017/2018 season so that by August 2017, all farmers participating in command agriculture, presidential input scheme and any other organised support programmes would have acquired inputs.
The country is expecting a harvest of 2,1 million tonnes of maize for the 2016/2017 agriculture season.
Command agriculture was launched last year under a $500 million fund.
In March, Agriculture minister Joseph Made told the national assembly that initially, the command agriculture programme had targeted to raise $500 million for 400 000 hectares, but that amount could not be raised.
Addressing guests at the 11th international business conference at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) this morning in Bulawayo, Mnangagwa said 'we have listened to the criticisms' and measures would be taken to rectify the errors.
"We are already preparing for summer, we listened to criticisms from both private sector and the community. we are correcting those deficiencies, we value your comments and criticisms as they make us better.
"By the way Command Agriculture does not mean we command people to go to the farms, we ask people to come to the programme voluntarily" he said.
He said despite the challenges faced, a bumper maize harvest is expected.
Higher Education minister Jonathan Moyo has been the lead critic of the project despite being a beneficiary.
According to Moyo, the scheme 'is at best premature and at worst needlessly false, primitive and a non-starter.
Mnangagwa said the important lesson emerging from the 2016/2017 summer agriculture season was that there is need to maximise on the distribution of inputs for the 2017/2018 season so that by August 2017, all farmers participating in command agriculture, presidential input scheme and any other organised support programmes would have acquired inputs.
The country is expecting a harvest of 2,1 million tonnes of maize for the 2016/2017 agriculture season.
Source - Byo24News
