Published by the government of Zimbabwe
17 July 2007
Harare — FISCORP (Private) Limited, in conjunction with the Ministry of Agricultural Engineering and Mechanisation, has started training farmers and beneficiaries of the Government's Farm Mechanisation Programme as the country intensifies efforts to promote the efficient use of new and old farming equipment.
Fiscorp is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.
The programme runs from today until August 10, 2007 at various agricultural training institutions in all the country's 10 provinces. Over the next four weeks, beneficiaries of the mechanisation programme will learn how to operate and maintain the farming implements they received under Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe-initiated mechanisation programme.
Although Government has set up a team of experts comprising agro-dealers, RBZ officials and the ministry to service the equipment, the workshops will assist farmers to get to grips with the day-to-day maintenance and operations of the machinery and tractors.
The programme starts with a three-day workshop in Manicaland at Magamba Agricultural Training College near the Nyanga turn-off along the Harare-Mutare Road. Kushinga-Phikelela Agricultural College near Marondera Chaminuka Agricultural Training Centre in Mt Darwin and Chibero Agricultural College, about 30km outside Harare, will host farmers from Mashonaland East, Central and West respectively.
Farmers from the Midlands region will converge at Mlezu Agricultural College from July 29-31, while Masvingo participants would be trained at Mushagashi Agricultural College near Masvingo from August 1-3. Beneficiaries from Matabeleland South Province will meet at Matobo Agricultural Research Station from August 5-7 while farmers in Matabeleland North farmers will be trained at Zesa Training Centre in Hwange.
An official with the Ministry of Agriculture said Zesa Training Centre had been chosen to host the farmers' workshop as it already offered courses in diesel and implement maintenance.
"The colleges have training facilities and have some of the equipment that farmers received under the first phase of the Farm Mechanisation Programme started by Government last year.
"Participants should, however, note that accommodation and meals would be provided at the various training venues although they will be required to make their own transport arrangements to and from the centres," he said.
Last month Government distributed farming implements -- comprising 925 tractors, 35 combine harvesters, 586 disc ploughs, 463 disc harrows, 70 vicon fertilizer spreaders, 241 boom sprayers and 71 planters -- imported under the US$25 million Farm Mechanisation Scheme launched by the central bank last year to the first beneficiaries of the ongoing programme.
The implements also included a consignment of 100 000 ploughs, harrows, scotchcarts, knapsack sprayers, cultivators and 200 000 chains and by July 10, 2007, 86 000 of the implements had been delivered while the remaining 614 000 were at various stages of manufacture.
As part of the continuing Agricultural Mechanisation Programme, the central bank has contracted some local companies to manufacture 700 000 ox-drawn farming implements for distribution to communal farmers in preparation for the 2007/08 farming season.
The private sector has also launched a similar scheme under which companies import farming equipment on behalf of their contract farmers. The Ministry of Agricultural Engineering and Mechanisation has also outlawed the importation of agricultural equipment without Government's approval so as to prevent an influx of sub-standard equipment under the guise of farm mechanisation.
To complement the imported equipment, Government is also in the process of mobilising and rehabilitating old equipment on the farms.
Government has pledged to put more emphasis on productivity as it seeks to restore the country to its former position as the breadbasket of the region.
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