The Sunday News
Munyaradzi Musiiwa, Sunday News Reporter
THE Government has dispatched a team of agricultural experts led by Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement Deputy Minister Vangelis Haritatos to conduct a preliminary land utilisation and planting assessment for the ongoing summer cropping season.
This comes as the Government has announced that it would repossess all the under-utilised land from land reform beneficiaries by 31 January, 2021.
The team is assessing the land that was planted by farmers under Pfumvudza/Intwasa, Presidential Input, Command Agriculture, commercial farmers, National Enhanced Crop Productivity Programme and other agricultural programmes funded by the Government.
Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement Ministry last week announced that the team will be led by Deputy Minister Haritatos and will visit all provinces assessing farms including communal areas to establish the total hectarage that has been planted so far during the summer cropping season.
That would help the Government to plan and project the output.
“We are conducting an assessment to see how much land has been planted so far. We want to get the accurate hectarage that has been cultivated. This will help Government in assessing both land utilisation as well as the projected output,” said the ministry in a statement.
The Government had earlier warned more than 360 000 beneficiaries of the land reform that the Government will be by 31 January, 2021 start repossessing land that has been underutilised.
The Government does not intend to import maize in 2021 and wants to ensure food security at household level hence the Pfumvudza/Intwasa and the Presidential Input Support programmes.
“It must be noted that the 18 000 A2 farmers and 360 000 A1 farmers are privileged to have had been given an opportunity to lease land as there are over 200 000 applicants on the provincial waiting list for land.
“In preparation for the exciting transformative journey, it has become necessary to invoke the powers under the Agricultural Marketing Authority Act (Chapter 18.24) to cause A2 and A1 farmers to submit mandatory production returns by January 31 2021 on the form obtainable from the Ministry’s Monitoring and Evaluation Unit and website as well as the ministry’s offices countrywide.
Agritex officers shall visit farms and submit separate verification reports.
The information gathered shall assist the ministry to support Provincial Land Committees in carrying out the new policy guidance on land focusing on prioritisation for redistribution of land in categories of multiple land ownership, abandoned farms, derelict farms and underutilised farms,” said Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement Minister Dr Anxious Masuku recently.
