Strong production systems key for food self-sufficiency
THE Government has called for the fortification of food production systems to avoid reliance on aid, which limits local agricultural growth and does not align with the push to attain self-sufficiency and foster sustainable agricultural practices.
President Mnangagwa made the call when he addressed delegates at the irrigation conference held in Harare recently, saying food aid programmes were creating a cycle of dependency with communities relying on external sources of food rather than developing their own self-sufficient agricultural systems.
“Models centred on food aid are not sustainable and disempower communities from the right to produce their own food,” said President Mnangagwa.
To achieve sustainable food security, a more comprehensive approach that empowers local communities to develop their own agricultural capacity, resilience and self-reliance is needed. This involves investments in irrigation and climate-smart farming techniques.
The President highlighted the importance of empowering the people to produce their own food, especially when dealing with the challenges posed by climate change.
“By empowering the local population, they will be better equipped to utilise their land resources productively,” he said.
Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development Minister, Dr Anxious Masuka echoed the President’s sentiments, adding that by investing in the expansion of agricultural productivity through irrigation infrastructure development, the country can stimulate the growth of agro-processing industries, manufacturing and other value-adding economic activities in rural areas.
“This rural industrialisation fuelled by agricultural progress then becomes the engine for overall economic development,” said Dr Masuka.
“The key premise is that agricultural development serves as a catalyst for industrialisation, which in turn drives broader economic development. This agricultural development-rural industrialisation-economic development-Vision 2030 nexus highlights the powerful synergies between these interdependent processes.”
The Zimbabwe Irrigation Investment 2024 conference saw the birth of a collaboration between the public and private sectors amounting to US$227 million in investments to go towards the country’s irrigation development. This came at a time Government is pulling out all stops towards finding everlasting solutions to climate-proof the country’s agricultural production.
The conference was themed “Public-Private Partnerships for Sustainable and Structured Irrigation Financing to deliver Food Security Everywhere, Everyday’ and highlighted the need for a multi-stakeholder approach involving both the public and private sectors to finance and develop irrigation infrastructure, with the ultimate goal of achieving comprehensive food security.
Minister Masuka emphasised the importance of expanding the country’s arable and irrigable land area to achieving the goal of becoming an empowered and prosperous upper middle-income economy by 2030 while meeting the targets outlined in the National Development Strategy (NDS1).
The country possesses significant water resources with an estimated potential to expand irrigation coverage to over two million hectares. Given this substantial untapped potential, there is a pressing need to foster targeted investments that can harness these water bodies and increase the area under controlled irrigation.
“Developing irrigation infrastructure will truly ensure that our country achieves food, nutritional and oil security,” said Dr Masuka.