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Victor Maphosa Mashonaland East Bureau

Vision 2030 of an empowered and prosperous upper middle income society requires a new education paradigm in agricultural colleges as the sector is at the core of rural development and transformation, Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development Minister Dr Anxious Masuka has said.

Officiating at the 29th annual graduation ceremony at Kushinga Phikelela Agricultural College in Marondera last Friday, Minister Masuka emphasised the need for agricultural colleges to equip students with skills that respond to the current agricultural needs.

“With regards to our agricultural education curriculum, on July 28, 2021, I launched the new Agricultural Education for Development 5.0 (AE4D5.0) curriculum, which is one of the milestones in our Agriculture and Food Systems Transformation Strategy, a key pillar for the National Development Strategy 1 (2021-2025),” he said.

“The new AE4D 5.0 system seeks to focus on five objectives: training, business advisory, research, innovation and entrepreneurship.

“The two graduating classes with a total of 97 students broken down into 60 women and 35 men is the last cohort to undergo training under the AE2.0 model. You are, therefore, required to acquaint yourselves with the transformative new curriculum on agricultural education for development.”

Government is now organising in-service training of the existing crop of agricultural extensionists so that they too can be sufficiently, physically and mentally motorised for agricultural transformation.

Said Minister Masuka: “These new agents of change must ensure that the 2,3 million rural households move from subsistence to surplus-oriented farming.

“These new agents of change must ensure that the 360 000 A1 farmers become SMEs. I see 360 000 businesses. I see each employing two people, so cumulatively some 720 000 jobs.

“These new agents of change are duty bound to ensure that the 21 000 A2 farmers become businesswomen and businessmen.

“In short, that they become perennially successful and serial agro-prenuers. I see another 21 000 businesses employing on average 10 people each, so 210 000 would be formally employed.

“The transformation of livelihoods for the attainment of Vision 2030 that we seek is based on an agro-centric approach to development as over 70 percent of our population is involved in agriculture. So this nomenclature change highlights the agriculture development-rural industrialisation-rural development nexus for the attainment of Vision 2030.”

Agricultural development must cause rural industrialisation, which must, of necessity, power rural development, which should in turn accelerate the attainment of Vision 2030.