RSA farmers should help Zim colleagues

RSA farmers should help Zim colleagues

SOUTH African Land Affairs Minister Lulu Xingwana has asked South Africa’s commercial farmers to join the agriculture department in coming to the aid of Zimbabwean farmers to prevent a food crisis in that country in the year ahead.

The minister told the farmers’ union AgriSA at its annual congress in Pretoria last week that she had received an urgent request to assist in Zimbabwe. She also asked her country’s financial services institutions to join in the rescue effort of Zimbabwe’s farm sector.Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers’ Union (CFU) president Trevor Gifford told the congress earlier that the country would be unable to plant the required one million hectares of maize needed to feed itself.There was fertiliser for only 40 00 ha and seed for a maximum of 360 000 ha, while the minimum annual planting is one million hectares.Gifford said Zimbabwe would have to rely on food aid from the international community and its southern African neighbours at least until 2010.Xingwana also admitted that “some of the land and farms handed over” for the purposes of land and agrarian reform in SA were “not working” and asked SA’s commercial farmers to come to the assistance of emerging farmers who, she said, had an important role to play in SA’s agriculture and in providing food security.- Business DayShe also asked her country’s financial services institutions to join in the rescue effort of Zimbabwe’s farm sector.Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers’ Union (CFU) president Trevor Gifford told the congress earlier that the country would be unable to plant the required one million hectares of maize needed to feed itself.There was fertiliser for only 40 00 ha and seed for a maximum of 360 000 ha, while the minimum annual planting is one million hectares.Gifford said Zimbabwe would have to rely on food aid from the international community and its southern African neighbours at least until 2010.Xingwana also admitted that “some of the land and farms handed over” for the purposes of land and agrarian reform in SA were “not working” and asked SA’s commercial farmers to come to the assistance of emerging farmers who, she said, had an important role to play in SA’s agriculture and in providing food security.- Business Day

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