Government intensifies farm mechanisation drive
GOVERNMENT is scaling up efforts to close the mechanisation gap of 20 000 tractors by
setting up the Mechanisation Development Alliance to stimulate the public and private
sectors to grow mechanisation uptake in the country and ease drought power shortages.
The Mechanisation Development Alliance (MDA) is an all-stakeholder initiative for
mechanising value chain actors that involve manufacturers, dealers, academia and the
Government.
It provides a platform for deliberations on policy, commercial quality, innovation,
research and development. The intervention will leverage the abilities of university
innovation hubs to conjure up mechanised implements that address the dictates of
modern farming for smallholder farmers, which will further push the rural agricultural
transformation.
The Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development, in its latest
bi-monthly magazine, reports that as at November 2022, the private sector had proposed
schemes for 5 000 tractor units and the Government another 3 337 tractors under the
Belarus scheme.
“In order to raise efficiency of labour and enhance productivity, the Government is
implementing unprecedented mechanisation schemes.
“In 2022 alone 1 641 tractors were distributed to farmers against a business as usual
target of 800-900 tractors a year,” it said.
Last month, President Mnangagwa commissioned 1 635 tractors, 16 combine harvesters
and other farming equipment under the US$66 million Belarus Phase 2 Mechanisation
Facility.
The first phase of the facility saw the delivery of 474 tractors, 60 combine harvesters,
210 planters and five low-bed trucks.
The Agricultural Finance Corporation (AFC) now offers tillage services to farmers after
receiving the first batch of 400 tractors from the Government in 2021.
“For the communal and smallholder sector, the Government launched the new paradigm
that for production to move to the next level, from a Theory of Constraints perspective,
the “hoe and the ox-drawn plough” are the biggest mechanical constraints militating
against increased production and productivity,” said the ministry.
“In this regard, the mechanisation gap was determined to be 25 000 two-wheel tractors
and the groundwork for closing this gap from 2023 has been laid.”
President Mnangagwa gets a feel of one of the tractors at the launch of the Belarus
Mechanisation facility in Harare
Highlighting progress on irrigation, the ministry said in order to de-risk agriculture,
President Mnangagwa announced an ambitious plan to irrigate 350 000ha by 2025 up
from 171 000ha in 2020.
The area under irrigation has increased to over 187 471ha as at November 2022, it noted.
“The Government has formed the Irrigation Development Alliance, comprising all
stakeholders and announced an ambitious plan to irrigate 350 000ha by 2025 up from 171
000ha in 2020”.
Last year various proposals for up to 100 000ha were submitted by the private sector and
the Government has since directed the commercialisation of all smallholder irrigation
schemes.
In 2022, a total of 304 irrigation schemes out of 450 schemes were commercialised
against a target of 200.-The Chronicle
