By Ndafadza Madanha
TWO decades ago Zimbabwe underwent a major reconfiguration when it embarked on a land reform exercise that was intended to address colonial imbalance that left 90 percent of the country’s arable and fertile land in the hands 4 000 white commercial farmers.
However, the bold decision by the ZANU PF government to return land to the black majority was met with stiff resistance from the West which imposed illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe that led to the collapse of the economy.
In the aftermath of the land reform production in the agriculture sector plummeted resulting in Zimbabwe importing agriculture produce and lost its tag as the bread basket by of Africa.
So dire was the situation that tobacco production that had peaked at 220m kgs in 2000 prior to the land reform had fallen to a mere 40m kgs in 2008.
Wheat production which had peaked at 325 000mt in 1990 was well below 50 000mt by 2010, while production of the staple crop maize had fallen to under 500 000mt.
With the coming in of the second Republic in 2017 under President Emmerson Mnangagwa the agriculture sector has recorded an upsurge in production in the various sub sectors.
Owing to the several policy initiatives introduced by the second Republic the country recorded the biggest maize harvest in 2020/21 season which came in at 2.72m tonnes.
Official statistics show that communal farmers, who have traditionally produced the bulk of Zimbabwe’s maize, had the largest sectorial output, at 988 782 tonnes.
This was followed by the sector commonly known as the A1 segment, made up of communal farmers resettled on 6 hectare plots since the onset of the government’s land redistribution drive in 2000.
The A1 farmers produced 706 372 tonnes of maize in the 2020/21 season. Combined, the communal and A1 farmers, segments that are overwhelmingly black dominated, produced 62% of Zimbabwe’s maize in the last farming season.
The trend was the same in 2019/20, when communal and A1 farmers produced a combined 511 000 tonnes, or 56% of the total 908 000 tonne output for that season. Communal and A1 farmers’ contribution to maize production was 58% and 56% in the 2017/18 and 2018/19 seasons, respectively.
Turning to wheat production Zimbabwe set its largest wheat harvest in 2022 that reached 375,000 tons, making the country a self-sufficient agricultural powerhouse, which is a unique performance on the continent. The harvest in 2022 was 13% higher than the previous year, breaking a half-century old record.The total volume of wheat produced in 2022 was five times more than that produced in 2021.
Tobacco production also hit record highs of 261 million kg in 2019 according to statistics from the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board.
The record was short-lived as it was shattered last year with farmers delivering a staggering 294 million kgs of the golden learn and earning US$891 million.
According to the minister of higher education and tertiary education, innovation, science and technology development (MHETISTD) Professor Aaron Murwira, the success of the agriculture sector is testimony of the renewed confidence farmers and Zimbabweans have in themselves and the decision by Government to remodel the education curriculum by bringing Education 5.0.
“Agriculture has grown from a US$3B sector to a US$8 billion since the Second republic came in with the new thinking brought about by Education 5.0 we have had surplus in wheat and are producing for 13 months from 3 months even at university level our children are actively participating in the nation’s food security quest."
He said his ministry was playing its role in the agriculture revolution through supporting the BIO Economy.
“Under the bio economy programme we have successfully established the Mapfura/ Amarula beneficiation Plant at Rutenga in Mwenezi. Under Finealt Engineering we have successfully refurbished the biodiesel prcessing plant. We have managed to come up with a programme to start local production of cooking oil using Sunflower and we started a Sunflower out grower scheme to be the source of our feedback."
He said to ensure that the agriculture revolution is sustainable there is need to ensure tertiary institutions play a role.
“At Marondera State University we have started a agriculture irrigation scheme with state of the art equipment something which was unheard of but in America, it is the universities that run the agriculture sector and we want to emulate that and be part of the agriculture revolution that is underway."