AGRICULTURE BUSINESS SEGMENT GROWTH CHALLENGED

MBABANE – The Government of Eswatini has challenged the agriculture business segment with growth.

The Ministry of Agriculture was allocated E1.63 billion and they are expected to hike growth by more than 1.6 per cent, obtained last year.
A business segment is a portion of a business that generates revenue from selling a product or a line of products. Among other things, the allocated funds will be utilised in the construction of secondary distribution canals and LUSIP II infield irrigation development, where the target is to irrigate an area covering 5 200 hectares in the Lowveld.

Project

“The LUSIP II Project should start contributing significantly to the economy this year as the planting of crops accelerates.” This was mentioned by the Minister of Finance, Neil Rijkenberg, during the budget speech on Friday. The agriculture sector has demonstrated resilience in the wake of the production disruptions faced in the past year, attaining a growth of 1.6 per cent of GDP in 2022. The sector is expected to maintain this growth rate in 2023 and government according to the minister of finance will continue to invest in the agriculture sector to ensure food security at household and national level, as well as promote commercial agricultural production. “The LUSIP II project should start contributing significantly to the economy this year as the planting of crops accelerates.

This budget also provides for the start of the construction of the Mkhondvo-Ngwavuma Water Augmentation Project (MNWAP),” added Rijkenberg.
Minister of Agriculture Jabulani Mabuza urged Eswatini Water and Agricultural Development Enterprise (Pty) Ltd (ESWADE) to diversify the land allocated for agricultural purposes to accommodate sugar beans and other scarce commodities in LUSIP II. The minister said the market would benefit local businesses as they would supply the product in large quantities, thus generating profit and stopping funds from leaving the country.

Levels

He said this would also contribute to the economy of the country as it would reduce the levels of unemployment. The minister assigned ESWADE, to use the remaining unallocated land (about 300 hectares) to produce sugar beans as the market was available for the country. “The remaining land label as ‘other’ in LUSIP II should be utilised to address the shortage of beans in the country, we have a market internationally and it requires tonnes of beans annually,” he said.He further urged farmers to concentrate on scarce commodities as they have a better performance in the market. As a way of minimising the continuous rise of inputs in the agriculture industry, the industry has initiated bulk input procurement facilities.

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: