LETTICIA MAGOMBO
Zimbabwe is battling a huge farm mechanisation deficit undermining the plan to modernise the country’s agriculture sector and making farming more efficient, the deputy Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Fisheries and Rural Resettlement, Vangelis Haritatos has said.
Five years ago, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, entered into a deal with the Belarus government to supply tractors and other farming equipment to Zimbabwe.
The equipment was expected to be shipped to Zimbabwe under 6 or 7 Phases.
But, few tractors were only delivered under Phase 1.
“A lot of farmers will benefit from the Belarus facility. Phase 1 went very well. ARDA is now well resuscitated and other institutions were also given a lot of tractors,” Haritatos told Business Times.
He added: “(However), we still have a (huge) deficit. So, we are looking at about 6 or 7 programmes to see the gap in mechanisation being closed.”
Zimbabwe has a tractor capacity of about 40 000 with only 7 000 functional meaning that there is a deficit of about 33 000 tractors.
“I think we still have to do a lot more collectively. In the greater scope of things we need more and more (tractors),” Haritatos said.
He expects the Phase 2 of the scheme to be launched soon.
“We are now almost at the end of Phase 1 of distributing the Belarus tractors. The equipment is already in the country. We expect the President (Emmerson Mnangagwa) to launch Phase 2 very soon and our farmers will be able to benefit from the Belarus facility.
“The other six or seven programmes have already been approved by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development.
Every Monday we get updates. It’s just a matter of agreeing and moving forward.
