THE Minister of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development, Dr Joseph Made, has hailed farmers for putting their country first ahead of personal interests by planting wheat successfully despite a raft of challenges. Farmers, he said, had not received any support for winter wheat farming with Finance Minister Tendai Biti saying the Government was ‘broke’ since the formation of the inclusive Government in 2009. Dr Made said this had resulted in the country failing to meet its required target as farmers had no access to inputs and loans to fund operations. Winter wheat planting started on May 1 and is expected to end on June 21, but indications are that the country will not meet its target because of lack of funding and intermittent power cuts by power utility, ZESA Holdings. In an interview this week, Dr Made commended farmers for soldiering on despite facing a number of challenges and said they should not sit and mourn because of some people whose motives are manifesting themselves through their attempt to sabotage the land reform programme. He said since the winter wheat season was short, farmers have done well to source funding for their operations following the reluctance to release funding by Biti. “Well the winter wheat farming season has started on a good note and the farmers have commendably done well under difficult conditions where they have literally had to rely on their own resources and we applaud that,” said Dr Made. “The farmers should not lose hope because of one person who is dancing to the tune of his master because they have a country to feed and they have done just that by managing to put seeds under the soil. “The winter wheat season, unlike summer, has a very short window period for preparation and actual planting of the crop and we expect the Minister of Finance to work hand-in-hand with the Ministry of Energy and Power Development and ZESA to make sure that farmers do their job and this sector should not be abused or sabotaged.” Dr Made said there was a marked improvement on the planted hectarage compared to last year. Information gathered by The Patriot this week revealed that farmers had so far planted 8 426 hectares of wheat compared to last year’s 5 992. The statistics show that Mashonaland West had a 46 percent increase in planted hectarage, Mashonaland Central, and Mashonaland East 32 and 40 percent respectively, while Manicaland and Masvingo have seen the hectarage decline by 26 and 3 percent respectively. Midlands, Matabeleland North and South have increases of 74, 37 and 110 percent respectively.