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Farirai Machivenyika Senior Reporter
Kenya is keen to learn more about the Command Agriculture concept and has commended Zimbabwe for successfully implementing the programme that resulted in the country recording a bumper harvest in the last summer cropping season.

Kenyan ambassador to Zimbabwe, Mrs Lucy Chelimo, said this when she paid a courtesy call on Acting President Emmerson Mnangagwa at his Munhumutapa offices in Harare last Friday.

“I had an opportunity to pay a courtesy call on the Acting President and briefed him on the happenings in Kenya that we are going to have a repeat election on the 26th of October, 2017,” she said.

“We also had a chance to talk about the Command Agriculture programme. In Kenya, we also have the same, but we call it contract farming and we wanted to learn about the integrated systems of Command Agriculture.

“We congratulate the Acting President for having coordinated that programme and Zimbabwe at large for the success of the programme and we want to learn from it.”

Zimbabwe expects to harvest over four million tonnes of food crops as a result of Command Agriculture, the Presidential Input Scheme and good rains received last season.

Mrs Chelimo commended the good relations between Zimbabwe and Kenya.

“We also looked at the relations between the two countries and we are happy that we are relating very well and we look forward to having a Joint Commission in the future so that we can put together our agreements and foster our relations,” she said.

“We briefed the Acting President that Kenya Airways flies 27 times to Zimbabwe (per week), 21 times between Nairobi and Harare and six times to Victoria Falls. It should be the highest frequency between African countries right now.”

On the forthcoming re-run of the presidential elections in her country that were called for after Kenya’s Supreme Court nullified President Uhuru Kenyatta’s victory over Mr Raila Odinga, Mrs Chelimo said her country was prepared for the polls.

“We are prepared, we already have the computerised system that will run the elections and the budgets which our law requires that when you go to elections you budget for all the eventualities,” she said. “We are ready and campaigns have started. We have not observed any (violence) other than expressions of emotions.”

Sweden’s ambassador to Zimbabwe, Sofia Calltorp also called on Acting President Mnangagwa and commended the strong relations between the two countries.

“I had a very fruitful discussion with the Acting President,” she said. “We talked about the long history of friendship between Sweden and the people Zimbabwe and we talked about areas where we can continue to cooperate.

“The Swedish government took a long strategy for development cooperation in Zimbabwe. We will invest about $40 million a year focusing on democracy, human rights, environment and climate.”