TENDAI BHEBE RECENTLY IN LUPANE
Government has availed multi crop threshers to farmers in Matabeleland North Province at a concessionary rate, Business Times can report.
The first beneficiaries in the province are from Jambezi in Hwange, Tsholotsho and Lupane districts.
A thresher is a piece of farm equipment that removes the seeds from the stalks and husks.
Speaking to farmers in Lupane recently, engineer Edwin Zimunga, the mechanisation chief director in the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water, Climate, and Rural Development, confirmed the development.
“It’s a sustainable model. We offer threshing machines to farmers, “ Zinunga said.
He added: “You do not necessarily need to own your own thresher for you to thresh your crop. Under the leasing model that the government came up with, you will be able to make use of the machines.
“The thresher can be moved easily from one farmer to another once the harvested heads are ready.
“That is part of industrialisation. We were in three different districts in Matabeleland Province that is Hwange – Jambezi, Tsholotsho and we are now in Lupane.
“What we are witnessing is that farmers are really taking this up with gratitude.
A Lupane farmer Manqoba Ncube said the move by the government was a game changer.
“As a community we cannot express how grateful we are. The machine that the government has brought for us in our area in Mafinyela, Lupane, we believe will change our lives and that of the country in food security. We intend to sell our products to Bulawayo and even stretch to Harare as a way of investing,” Ncube said.
