Embrace agric technologies, President tells farmers 

Source: Embrace agric technologies, President tells farmers | The Herald July 10, 2019

President Mnangagwa is led on a tour of Radzim Agri-Power by the company’s managing director, Mr Keith Lowe (left), in Bluffhill, Harare,yesterday. Also in attendance was Harare Metropolitan Province Minister Oliver Chidawu (far right). — (Picture by Justin Mutenda)

Farirai Machivenyika Senior Reporter
President Mnangagwa says farmers should embrace new farming technologies to improve productivity and reduce the country’s dependence on imports.

He said this yesterday after touring Radzim Agri-Power company at Bluffhill Industrial Park in Harare.

Formed in 1996, the firm supplies farming implements.

President Mnangagwa, a farmer of repute, said he strives to embrace technology in his operations.

“As a farmer I want to embrace technology for the betterment of production,” he said.

“For example, as a farmer I continuously interrogate the latest technology in agriculture to mechanise and modernise our agriculture. Our farmers at every level, the small (scale) farmer, the medium (scale) farmer and the commercial farmer, the big farmer; we should not be content with how we entered agriculture, we must continuously seek to improve productivity on our land.”

The President said Zimbabwe should not be importing food given its rich soils.

“We can never improve the size of our land but what we can improve is the production on the piece of land that we have and that can only be done by embracing science and technology.

“This is the way to go. Zimbabwe is primarily an agricultural economy. It is from the soil where we get our living, our food comes from the soil. We should be happy and grateful that Zimbabwe has abundant agricultural land and it’s a shame that we should be importing food when we are endowed with such rich and fertile land in this country,” he said.

The President called on Government and the private sector to work together to improve productivity on farms in light of the menacing climate change.

“We cannot control climate change but there are methods of mitigating climate change and that is by building dams across the country so that we increase productivity even in times of droughts.

“It is necessary that both as Government and the private sector we put our act together.

“There’s no ‘them and us’, it should always be ‘us together’, to develop, to improve the lives of our people,” he said.

President Mnangagwa said agricultural production was a prerequisite for the growth of industry in the country.