Blessing Nduku
In a major boost to agricultural production and food security, the Insukamini Cluster irrigation scheme has installed a state-of-the-art cold room facility that will innovate the way farmers preserve and market their produce.
The irrigation scheme’s cold room facility is a game-changer for its four irrigation schemes groups namely Landaph, Insukamini, Mkoba and Mabanje with the capacity of 2000 kilograms of produce to ensure freshness and increase earnings.
Speaking during a tour last week, Provincial Mechanism Engineer in the Ministry of Agriculture Engineer Andrew Mupariwa stated that the cold room is a major milestone for farmers within the Insukamini cluster.
“This infrastructure that you see is a cold room and is a major milestone in this cluster because our farmers were losing lots and lots of horticulture crops soon after harvesting hence this cold room is going to solve that and one of the reasons why we had this is to promote the growing of horticultural crops for exports.”
“For instance, last season farmers had group peas and sugar beans and they made use of this infrastructure to ensure that their produce reached its destination fresh.
This infrastructure also has a facility of packaging whereby if farmers want to supply to supermarkets like OK and Pick n Pay, they will package well their produce before they reach the market targeted.”
Engineer Mupariwa went on to stretch out the challenge these farmers are facing as well as appealed to well-wishers to assist them with anything to ensure that this project keeps on.
“One of the major challenges that these farmers are facing is the market distance from the farm as well as the high temperatures between the Gweru to Lower-Gweru community.
We appeal to well-wishers to assist us with anything they feel farmers might need to ensure that this keeps on for instance a cold room lorry to transport goods to market.”
The ‘Post-Harvest Pack Shade’ as they named it, is 8.1 kilowatt solar powered which works during the day and five power batteries which work in the evening with a transformer that backs up with electricity whenever power is available or when it is cloudy.
The Insukamini irrigation scheme was established in 1988 under the Food Agriculture Organization (FAO) Fund.
The government in partnership with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) intervened to save the irrigation project from total collapse.
The Insukamini irrigation scheme has seven hectares of green mealies which is ready, hectares of early green mealies, one hectare of potatoes which is ready to harvest, 5 hectares of cabbage and fourteen hectares of sugar beans.
They also have a Center pivot for water conservation for all irrigation and they will be using a flood system in the next five years yet are planning to start agro-forests.
The Insukamini Cluster consists of 100 male farmers and 275 female farmers to make it a total of 375 farmers.
The installation of the cold room facility at the Insukamini Cluster Irrigation Scheme marks a significant step forward for the community and provides farmers with a modern and efficient way to store their produce and helps to improve food security in the country as a whole.
