THE launch of the Agriculture and Food Systems Transformation Strategy by President Emmerson Mnangagwa is most welcome and yet another positive step towards reviving our fortunes.
This is a strategy that seeks to make the country food secure and improve the lot of rural communities.
By providing inputs to both vulnerable and smallholder farmers, fostering market links, climate-proofing all agricultural support programmes, implementation of market-based programmes that rope in the private sector to improve competitiveness of agriculture commodities on local and export markets, the agricultural sector will anchor economic growth.
If our economy is anchored on agriculture, we will be guaranteed of sustainable growth and an all-inclusive economy.
No one will be left behind.
And we will not tire reminding all and sundry that outsiders have no place in this quest.
It is a task to be carried out by Zimbabweans for Zimbabweans.
Outsiders do not determine our path.
They do not determine our future.
Our future is in our hands.
And crucially, that we have our own formula when it comes to running our economy.
Our economy should be in the hands of the majority. That is why we waged the struggle against colonialism and its vestiges.
That is why we took up arms against the enemy.
Still, that enemy will not relent.
It is the duty of every Zimbabwean to appreciate and value what the country has.
True ownership of resources is rooted in knowledge of that which is owned.
If we desire wealth and the good life then we must fight for it, work for it.
It will not be handed to us by the Americans or the British.
We cannot look up to them, we must look at ourselves.
This is one message that our leadership is continually delivering and one that our people must understand.
The battles, the difficult ones, have already been fought for us and what is demanded of us is consolidation of our achievements.
No country in SADC is under colonial bondage.
All states have gained independence and there are no reasons we should not thrive.
We feel powerless because we are surviving as victims, but we are not.
Our liberation struggles were successful because everyone was accountable.he message was clear: “Iwe neni tine basa/Mina lawe silomsebenzi.”
And everyone, at the rear, at the front, in the villages, in the cities, wherever they were, everyone played their part.
And that is what is demanded from everyone in our present situation.
If we are to do away with greed and corruption and be united as a people, serving a single agenda which is the development of our country, we will thrive.
It is an open secret that these pieces of land have kept a majority of us going in these difficult times as our economy tries to recover from the battering it has received from the West.
Our farmers beyond doubt continue to improve and prove our erstwhile colonisers wrong.