By EPN Reporter
MBABANE – Agriculture is at the centre of Government’s mandate to end hunger and poverty in the country.
This was said by Minister of Agriculture Mandla Tshawuka today during the handover of a cutting-edge Fruit Tree Production and Marketing Project, a collaborative effort of the Government of Eswatini and the Government of Taiwan.
He said Government was given a clear mandate by Their Majesties, following submissions by Emaswati from the recent Sibaya. The mandate given by Their Majesties was that Government should go and ensure that there was an end of hunger and poverty in the shortest time possible.
Minister Tshawuka thanked the Government of Taiwan for collaborating with his ministry in this initiative because it was one of the initiatives in making sure that hunger was eradicated. Tshawuka said a country that could not feed itself faced risk of losing its sovereignty because other countries would tell it how to run its affairs, as they would be the ones feeding that country. Failure to do so, that country would face sanctions.
He said the jobs would also be exported to other countries because the people producing food under that scenario, would be working from outside the country. He said it was comforting to realise that the country was on its way to achieve that mandate because it was improving in producing bananas and hoped that soon, the improvement would be realised in other fruits.
Expressing profound gratitude to the Taiwanese government for such an invaluable contribution, the Minister of Agriculture said: “The infrastructure and facilities will contribute towards effective production of healthy and sufficient fruit seedlings in the country. We are not just receiving tools and machines, but we are cultivating hope and prosperity for every fruit farmer out there.”
