The government of Zimbabwe has intensified a bid to promote investment in irrigation development to promote agriculture and economic growth in the midst of climate change and the current El-Nino phenomenon which has has struck the country and the region at large.
To court potential investors, the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture,Fisheries,Water and Rural Development on 5 July,2024 organized a high powered Zimbabwe Irrigation Investment Conference endorsed and graced by the country,'s Presidium and highly attended by potential investors, farmers, development partners, diplomatic community, finance institutions, Central Bank, private sector and members of the Irrigation Development Alliance in Zimbabwe.
Officially welcoming delegates,Charles Tavengwa,Minister of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution for Harare Metropolitan province said that the conference was the first of it's kind hosted by the country's Second Republic.
Tavengwa dressed the importance of agriculture stressing that it's the backbone of the economy amidst mounting challenges like the climate change crisis and water scarcity issues affecting communities.Tavengwa said that irrigation development is a major priority for the country inorder to climate-proof food production.
"We have had the worst El-Nino in at least 40 years and irrigation is a key enabler to agricultural production,"he said.
In a presentation premised on setting the scene and the need to accelerate climate proofing in agriculture,Dr Anxious Masuka,Minister of Lands, Agriculture,Fisheries, Water and Rural Development emphasized the need to delink rainfall,hence the country's desire to invest in dam construction and irrigation development.
He said that at least 20 to 12 dams are under construction in the country and potential investors interested in the sector are being invited to express interest.
Also according to Masuka,at least 20 800 hectares of land is available for irrigation development in the country.
He also presided at a signing ceremony on concluded irrigation development investment deals amounting to a total investment of $223 million for irrigation development, covering 35 725 hectares of land in the country.
The signed deals were clinched by Valley,a company specializing in precision irrigation, including centre pivot irrigation to the tune of $172 million, for irrigation development covering 23 000 hectares.
Another deal signed by the government includes the Mundawedu/Pedstock for 51 million euro for irrigation development covering 12725 hectares of land in the country. Deal Rooms were set up at the investment conference to engage with potential investors and to provide them with much needed information.
The Deal Rooms focused on sector categories for investment in smallholder irrigation,big dams construction and the commercial irrigation Vision 2030 lncubator Accelerator Model. The government of Zimbabwe through the responsible ministry also promoted quick fix irrigation projects through a prospectus distributed to delegates at the conference.
The Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development says in the prospectus that the country's potential irrigable land is developed into functional irrigation systems that are water efficient and labour sufficient so that crop production and productivity are increased.
The prospectus says that an estimated 217 000 hectares are functional and the irrigation equipped area is 238 000 hectares giving a gap of about 20 686 hectares requiring rehabilitation.The Ministry says that a deliberate policy decision has be made by government to ensure that all the country's non-ooerational irrigation schemes are resurrected. The prospectus profiles the identified farms across all the country's provinces.
