Tapiwanashe Mangwiro

The government has set out a comprehensive strategy to transform Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector into a climate-resilient, commercially oriented agro-industrial hub aimed at achieving national food sovereignty by 2030.

The policy framework prioritises climate-proofed production, rural industrialisation, and improved farmer livelihoods to shift the country away from rain-fed subsistence farming toward sustainable, high-value commodity production.

Speaking at the inaugural National Agriculture Conference and Expo (NACE) 2026, Agriculture, Mechanisation and Water Resources Minister Dr Anxious Masuka said the country must move beyond the traditional focus on simply producing enough food and instead build an agriculture sector capable of supporting broader economic transformation.

He said agriculture would remain central to the attainment of Vision 2030, noting that the sector contributed significantly to economic growth last year.

“The 8.3% growth that we saw in the economy last year, 2.2 percentage points were contributed by agriculture, which grew by a stellar 27.9%,” Dr Masuka said.

He said the first major resolution was to achieve perennial food security and progressively strengthen food sovereignty by increasing domestic production.

“For far too long, we were looking at food security from two perspectives. The first is that if we didn’t produce enough, we must import,” he said. “But with macroeconomic shocks, pandemics, geopolitical disruptions of trade routes and conflict, increasingly, we are looking towards food sovereignty.”

Dr Masuka said the government would therefore continue implementing measures that encourage domestic production, with the proportion of locally produced goods on supermarket shelves already reaching 80%.

“We must do much more,” he said.

Another key resolution is to put farmers at the centre of the agricultural value chain and ensure they receive a greater share of the value generated from their produce.

He said farmers were currently disadvantaged by the structure of the value chain, particularly where produce was sold at relatively low prices while processed products commanded significantly higher prices.

“Farmers must get more fair value for their effort. So we will be placing farmers at the centre of the value chain increasingly,” Dr Masuka said.

The government is also targeting accelerated irrigation development as part of efforts to climate-proof agricultural production.

Dr Masuka said Zimbabwe intends to develop 496 000 hectares of irrigation by 2030, enabling annual summer production of about 350 000 hectares and potentially producing 1,75 million tonnes of cereals.

The target is intended to reduce the sector’s vulnerability to rainfall shocks and ensure food production continues even during drought conditions.

“Climate-proofing agriculture means adopting climate-smart agricultural practices … to accelerate irrigation development,” he said.

Rural industrialisation and value addition will also be prioritised, with government seeking to move processing closer to production areas.

Dr Masuka said transporting grain to urban centres for milling before transporting processed products back to rural areas was inefficient, with transport accounting for between 30 and 40 percent of the cost of maize meal and bread.

“Rural industrialisation, rural development to anchor Vision 2030,” he said, adding that Zimbabwe must increasingly produce, process and add value to agricultural commodities within farming communities.

Government is therefore supporting small processing facilities for maize, wheat and oilseeds, while village, school and youth business units are expected to contribute to local value addition and beneficiation.

The Minister said Zimbabwe’s ambition was no longer simply to become a regional “breadbasket”, but an agro-industrial hub exporting processed products rather than raw commodities.

“We don’t want to export wheat in Tanzania. We want to export flour, a value-added product, so that we don’t export value, we don’t export jobs,” he said.

Another major resolution is the strengthening of the country’s strategic grain reserves in preparation for future droughts.

Government is targeting at least 600 000 tonnes by August 2027, with stocks expected to reach 450 000 tonnes by the end of this year.

Dr Masuka said the reserve would provide greater protection for vulnerable households and schoolchildren during periods of food shortages.

Government will also intensify measures to reduce post-harvest losses, which the Minister said can reach 28 to 30% in some value chains, while promoting improved grain storage and household food reserves.

The new agricultural financing architecture will complement these measures, including climate-risk insurance, drought mitigation programmes and measures to lower production costs. Government is also looking at sovereign drought insurance and household-level insurance.

Dr Masuka said the Government would also focus on livestock drought mitigation, smaller livestock such as goats and poultry, and stronger coordination among Government, farmers and other value-chain actors.

“The low normal rainfall will not only impact agriculture. It will impact nutrition, health, energy, livelihoods, economy, and much more,” he said.

The resolutions collectively seek to reposition agriculture from a largely primary-production activity into a commercially driven sector that generates employment, supports rural development, strengthens food security and contributes to Zimbabwe’s broader industrialisation agenda.

“Zimbabwe does not wish to become a breadbasket anymore,” Dr Masuka said. “What we want to do is to become this agro-industrial hub made up of these micro-production facilities on farms, so that they can begin to feed into the region.”