HARARE – Agriculture minister, Joseph Made says government will not fund this season’s winter crop and has urged farmers who benefitted from land redistribution to approach banks for funding instead.
“The financial resources are limited. There will be no support for A2 farmers. Go and kneel down in front of your banks,” Made said responding to a question in the Senate recently on what government was doing to assist farmers.
He said A2 farmers, the beneficiaries of land seizures from whites, should not look up to government for inputs this season, a departure from government’s tradition of dishing out free inputs and equipment over the last decade.
“You will have to go to the banks because whatever we do as government we are accumulating debt and we have to make good of what we owe companies,” he said.
Made said the government was repaying the companies that it owed for inputs, particularly fertilizer manufacturers which are owed millions of dollars.
– The Source
