By Sifelani Murambiwa.
Chiredzi, Zimbabwe. (News Of The South) – Government has deployed Land Auditors to Chiredzi on a fact finding mission aiming at unearthing cases of underutilization of sugarcane plantations, a development that is likely to see underperforming
farmers losing their pieces of land.
The development comes as more people are pressing government to issue them with sugarcane plantations while some who benefitted earlier have already abandoned their fields due to poor management.
Addressing Zanu PF members during the Chiredzi Inter-District Meeting,
Resident Minister for Masvingo Province Cde Shuvai Mahofa said government has deployed auditors into sugarcane farms to ascertain the levels of production from each and every beneficiary of the Land Reform Program.
“Those of you who are into sugarcane farming, government has deployed land auditors who are seeing how productive you are at your pieces of land, they have heard that some farmers have gone for years without planting sugarcane on their plots but surprisingly no one has ever surrendered his field to government saying I have failed producing sugarcane so please allocate the farm to those who are able,” said Cde Mahofa.
Deputy Minister for Agriculture Responsible for Crops Cde Davis Marapira also said the main goal of government is to establish as to why some farmers are productive while others are struggling.
He said farmers must make sure that they utilize their pieces of land since the country’s economy is heavily relaying on Agriculture.
“Now that we have got the land, lets us make it very productive. As government we will continue to insure that the land is utilized effectively since Agriculture is the main contributor in our economy, contributing between 15 to 18percent of the Gross domestic product. We must employ more people than we are currently doing, we must take over 80 percent of the work force, we have to provide over 70 percent of our raw materials in the country and this will send signals to everyone about the importance of our Agriculture,” he said.
Minister Marapira added that the prevailing foreign currency challenges which the country is experiencing are a testimony that our farming is poor.
“All the problems we are facing be it cash shortages, foreign currently unavailability it’s all because of farmers who are not performing well. We must export more Tobacco, we must export more sugar, we must export more lint and we must do that in the livestock
department. President Mugabe issued land and we must honor his efforts by just producing and producing,” said Minister Marapira.
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