Agriculture ministry acquires land for Neckartal Dam’s second phase

The Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Land Reform has acquired about 19 000 hectares for the second phase of the Neckartal Dam in the ||Kharas region.

Responding to questions by Nampa on the progress of the second phase of the dam, the ministry said the land was acquired at a cost of close to N.dollars 19 million.

The first phase was the construction of the dam wall, which was constructed by Italian company Salini Impregilo and commenced in 2013 and was completed in 2019 at a cost the N.dollars 5.5 billion.

The second phase is the development of irrigation projects that are expected to create employment for thousands of people.

The ministry’s public relations officer, Jona Musheko said the ministry in November advertised a request for expression of interest for consulting services to conduct a feasibility study that will help the ministry in determining what mode will they use to develop the land and what fruits or crops will be produced on the land.

“We want to determine the suitable design that we can use, financing and operation models and what can we grow, what is suitable to be grown on the land we have acquired,” he added.

Musheko however could not provide a timeframe on how long the consultation period will run before the actual development of the irrigation scheme can commence.

Recently ||Kharas Governor, Aletha Frederick told this news agency that she hopes that government will consider having small farmers incorporated in the irrigation phase, saying that the government should speed up the process of the development of the second phase of the dam.

“As much as we do not have money to develop the land and we need big investors to develop the land, we should ensure that our small farmers, women and youth, also get land as growers, not just as employees. We can register cooperatives for them to work as groups so that they benefit greatly from this investment,” she added.

(NAMPA)
ST/HP/EK
(NAMPA)

Images Linked to this story