Zimbabwe’s Lands and Agriculture Ministry says input suppliers should offer financing schemes to irrigation projects across the country to bridge financial gaps and boost production.
The ministry’s director for rural development Leonard Munamati told the media during an agriculture field day hosted by Zadzamatura in Guruve North at Siyalima Irrigation Scheme that the companies must build relationships and trust with the farmers to ensure timeous input availability.
“Seed producers, chemical producers, and fertilizer producers should really support our farmers at irrigation schemes. Trust these irrigation schemes and supply them with resources and inputs which they need on time.
“We don’t want irrigation schemes which struggle to get inputs on time when we have these support companies. They should design payment plans that cover the production cycles,” Munamati said.
Zadzamatura sales and marketing manager Blessing Hatidane encouraged farmers, particularly, communal farmers or small scale farmers, to organise themselves into small groups.
He said his company was willing to offer flexible terms to meet different kinds of farming needs.
“They should come up with a farming plan so that we can look at the quantities of seed that they want. At commercial level, commercial farmers can always have arrangements with us in terms of payments.
“We work with the Agricultural and Rural Development Advisory Services within the Ministry to ensure that we can facilitate farmers to get seed with some payment plan methods.
“So at the end of the day, a farmer can get to the field well on time while we are organising payment plans. That\'s what we do with Zadzamatura,” Hatidane said.
Guruve North Member of Parliament Tendai Pinduka said the success of farmers at the Siyalima Irrigation Scheme is clear evidence of rural development, as envisioned in the National Development Strategy 2.
“This represents a very good example in terms of rural communities coming up with an enterprise. This is an enterprise that will generate incomes, that will also support livelihoods in terms of paying school fees, and in terms of rural development,” the MP said.
He said this would boost Guruve District’s gross domestic product but he stressed that out of 16 dams in his constituency which are ready for irrigation only two were currently functional.
“We are also even calling for the Ministry to also accelerate rural development in terms of irrigation schemes in the other 14 dams that are lying idle,” Pinduka said.
