Published: 05 September 2017

GOVERNMENT says nearly 40 000 farmers have registered to grow maize during the 2017/17 farming season with over 170 000 hectares of land targeted for the crop.

A total of 39 714 farmers, including institutions, targeting 173 223 hectares of irrigable and dry  land have registered for the 2017/18 agricultural season with preparations already underway.

For soya bean production, a total of 28 818 hectares of irrigable  and dry land was targeted for production of the crop with 5 268 farmers having been registered.

The figures are as at mid-August, 2017.

Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is chairman for the Cabinet Committee on Food Security and Nutrition, said recently that while Government was encouraged by the success of the 2016/17 summer cropping season, greater attention had been put on value addition and beneficiation of the harvested crops.

"While we celebrate the bumper harvest achieved in the 2016/17 summer cropping season, we should be pondering about strategies to optimise value out of the harvest.

"Value addition is undoubtedly key to unlocking value in agricultural produce," VP Mnangagwa said in a speech read on his behalf at an agricultural conference recently.

"It is in this perspective that Government is exploring modalities of adding value to soya bean, a crop whose production has also been included under the Command Agriculture initiative. Over two thousand farmers have registered to grow soya beans under the Command Agriculture scheme," VP Mnangagwa said.
- BH24

You might also want to read this

• Mnangagwa stuffs cabinet with family, loyalists
• Zimbabwe writes off 106 520ha of maize due to dry weather spell
• Mnangagwa okays US dollar use
• Mnangagwa pledges to end machete wars
• Civil servants warn Mnangagwa, govt
• Mnangagwa woos Gamatox, G40 big guns
• Anti-sanctions march a wake-up call for Mnangagwa
• Mnangagwa accuses the clerics of being biased towards Chamisa
• Mnangagwa must call for referendum
• The future is tech, Mnangagwa