THE biting chills are no more, winter is gone.
The seasons are unfolding as they must.
And each coming season comes with obligations and responsibilities.
As summer approaches we do not just celebrate the departure of bone numbing coldness, but the approach of yet another cropping season.
And every cropping season presents us with an opportunity for total self-sustenance.
Experts have put forth a figure required for a successful cropping season and livestock production.
The figure is US$1,7 billion.
It is a huge figure.
Government is presently grappling with a myriad challenges which make raising the money a daunting task.
Some are hopeless, some scared and some worried.
Prophets of doom rub their hands in glee.
Failure they say is guaranteed, but we will not fail.
For the honours to find money to support the agricultural sector is not only on Government.
Government has already created an enabling environment by ensuring that the majority have access to prime fertile land.
The challenge to secure funds and to produce is to all of us.
We cannot afford to fold hands and wait for Government to deliver, it has already delivered.
We have faced seemingly insurmountable challenges in the past and prevailed.
As we indicate elsewhere in the paper life changing projects will soon take-off.
And as they take-off let them be anchored by a successful agricultural sector.
Government has availed farm machinery sourced from Brazil.
Irrigation systems are being repaired to ensure that we do not just depend on rainfall for production.
Efforts are being made to pay farmers that delivered produce to the Grain Marketing Board (GMB).
The US$1, 7 billion figure is exactly what it is, a figure.
It does not mean we have failed.
It does not mean production will be impossible.
If each and every one of us is to make half the effort Government is making we will succeed.
We all have a duty and obligation to ensure that the agricultural sector thrive, it is not jut Government that must ensure the sector works, all of us must.
Let us approach the agricultural sector the way we approached the liberation struggle.
All hands on deck.
All of us united and operating with a common purpose.
Let us all put our minds and effort to ensuring that everyone with a piece of land, in the resettlement, rural areas and cities, gets to be productive.
Let us fully invoke the spirit of hunhu/ubuntu and share our resources.
Those with tractors be generous and avail them to fellow farmers that do not have.
While we still have time let us ensure that every farmer has tilled the land and has made it ready to receive seed.
Soil scientists visit our farmers and test their soils even if you have not been invited to do so.
Veterinary doctors offer your services to the small-scale farmer and ensure that the cattle used for draught power are in good condition.
Business experts, economists and accountants visit our farmers and help them draw proposals that will attract funding.
A good and viable business plan will attract capital even in the absence of collateral.
Operating farms as business entities will propel growth of the sector.
Consumers of produce, retailers and wholesalers place your orders now so that farmers know exactly what to produce as well as the quantities.
There must be a creation of synergies between consumers and producers.
Lawyers ensure that contracts being drawn and brought to our farmers will not prejudice them.
Cases of farmers that lose out after engaging in contract farming only set us back.
Let us not be demoralised by figures.
We will succeed in the forthcoming cropping season if we choose to.