Animal-drawn farming equipment for Zimbabwe, says report

May 23, 2007, 9:23 GMT

Harare - Desperate to see Zimbabwes farming fortunes improve, the central bank has come up with an ambitious new project: setting up technical colleges that will produce at least half a million ox-drawn carts and ploughs, it was reported Wednesday.

Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono has become increasingly frustrated with the slow pace of recovery of the agricultural sector, thrown into disarray by the launch of a controversial land reform programme in 2000.

Gono, tipped as a presidential hopeful, has overseen the importation of tractors and the disbursement of countless funds in a bid to encourage new black farmers to produce good yields.

But there has been little improvement. Zimbabwe, once the breadbasket of the southern African region, has been reduced to the status of food importer.

This year less than one tenth of the targeted wheat crop has been planted due to a shortage of tractors among other shortages of equipment and inputs.

Now the central bank chief has gone back to basics. He wants to provide traditional animal-drawn carts and ploughs for black peasant farmers.

Zimbabwe's farming areas are divided into communal lands which have long been farmed by subsistence farmers and resettlement areas, which used to be farmed by whites before 2000.

The farming implements to be manufactured by 62 new technical institutions -- will be distributed to the communal farmers.

'Communal farmers contribute to the country's food security so we decided to recognize them and assist them [to] improve their traditional way of farming through the provision of these implements,' Gono said.

'Its time now that we stopped importing maize and even wheat, wasting the little foreign currency that we have. We have to produce and this we can do as we have the capacity,' he added.

Zimbabwe this year faces a critical shortage of more than a million tonnes of the staple maize crop.