Zimbabwe is living a renaissance
in agriculture. Majority of the almost 12 million population depends
of agriculture. Since colonization Zimbabweans assumed foreigners
solutions to increase and improve agriculture and food production. In
many decades farmers lost their autonomy, they depend on seed producers,
expensive chemical fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides. Zimbabwean
farmers are not more tad or less hungry as they were in the last century
but they are crashed. At the same time they are facing and successful
solving environmental degradation. Poor Zimbabweans dont have
money to continue expensive experimentations in agriculture developed
in and outside the country. Intentionally or unintentionally they step
out of the roundabout of missed development. They are producing enough
food as cheap as possible. The more important input is a seed. To have
a seed means to have power. In Zimbabwe breeding a productive plant
from a tiny seed in extremely unpleasant natural conditions is an invention.
We witnessed Zimbabweans who shifted
to natural farming systems. They are utilizing locally available organic
soil and enrichment materials such as cattle, goat and sheep manure,
anthill soil, crop residues, compost and humus from hilltops and under
trees or planting legumes to add nitrogen to the soil. They apply inter-cropping
of various crops to combat the effects of drought. They are solving
the problem of soil erosion planting special variety of grass (vetiver
grass), introducing indigenous crops as cassava, rapoko and sorghum
and developing the production of indigenous seeds.
On the opposite the agriculture industry
is developing and sustaining conventional farming patterns, promoting
hybrid seeds, mono-cropping, external inputs as inorganic fertilizers
and numerous chemicals. Monsanto, the huge North American multinational,
is entering the Zimbabwean agricultural sector at the back door. In
Zimbabwe Monsanto is distributing hybrid maize varieties and chemicals,
especially herbicides. With a rainy season (starts around December)
the North American multinational will start with trial plots of genetically
modified cotton on the governments land. Probation period would
last for three years, sells manager Enoch Chikava said. In Zimbabwe
Monsanto is focused on developing seed business in small-scale farming
sector as a future market where most of cotton and maize as important
cash crops are cultivated.
An article includes the stories listed
below:
Monsanto selling strategy: "The
service you give not the quality of seeds is the most important think
when selling seeds," selling manager for small-scale sector of
Monsanto Zimbabwe Charles Songore said. He showed us a direct to consumer
selling approach in Murombedzi and Bango villages. He meet 36 women
under the tree on the village square, talk with them offering all a
soft drink. Each woman came to the appointment with Charles to buy 10
kilograms of hybrid maize seeds to plant half a hectare of land. They
collected money since January, a cashier Marvelous said. Most of women
were more than 50 years old. The oldest grandmother was 80. Maize as
a staple food is a cash crop too and women need extra money. With Aids
pandemic women become breadwinners. They need to afford school fees
for children. More then half of them are looking after grandchildren,
orphans due to AIDS pandemic in Zimbabwe. During exchange of money and
seeds women sung and danced happily.
Farm innovators stories:
An innovation is the ability to use
available resources to improve agricultural production in given natural
conditions. An innovation is a development of organic farming combined
with indigenous farming knowledge based on use of natural resources
across the country. Firs individual farmers developed personalized innovations
to improve their living on isolated parcels of unproductive ground scattered
across the colony's hinterlands. In last years several local NGOs with
the foreign (mostly financial) support promote the expansion of know
how with practical demonstrations on the ground. Individual farmer-innovators
demonstrate techniques they developed. It's upon other farmers to adapt
the system appropriate to certain area. An innovation derives from the
inspiration, it is not learned and it leads to small-scale subsistence
farming. Every innovator is unique. The difference you notice are green
vegetable gardens in the middle of sandy areas during dry season (from
April to December).
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The Water Harvester - Zephaniah Phiri
Maseko alias Mr. Phiri
A technique is a base, practicability
an everyday duty, Mr. Phiri said. Mr. Phiri at the age of 74 is known
as a water harvester and he is planting water as he is planting crops.
Because of his water harvesting today he is famous all over southern
Africa /a book about him is published/. He dug many large pits on his
land, within contour ridges, called infiltration pits, built stone sand
traps, hand-dug reservoirs, stonewalled canals. He crated his own Evfrat
and Tigris, he said. Over the decades thousands of people have come
to visit his farm and his pond and he is sharing his lifetime experience
with others thru an indigenous NGO Zvishavane Water Project. He is still
working the land and producing enough food for his extended family.
Cleopas Banda (47) - farm innovator
His prime concern is to reintroduce
indigenous draught resistant crops as cassava, sorghum, millet and rapoco
as staple products to replace more drought-sensitive maize and the present-day
staple food sadza (maize porridge). He also developed his own
"no cost" dripping system on his land and he has his own seed bank where
he is conservation indigenous seed... He is also distributing cassava
plant to other farmers in the community. A cassava resists without water
for seven years and gives food for human and for animals, Cleopas says.
He constructed a reservoir with system of canals on a large sandy area
where he catch the water during the rainy season and direct it to his
self-made dripping system almost all year around.
Bowas Mawara (53)- Farm innovator
He went to Australia for an exchange
of farming know haw in dry lands where he participated to Land care
program and shared his experience with other farmers. He developed a
system to collect water with a help of gravity. He dug deep pits and
created a circulation of water from the upper side of his commercial
farm to lower side, where the pits retain water. The canals create a
connected system and make possible a circulation of water all around
the land filling the fish pound all year around. In area with erratic
rains he succeeded to keep the farm green all-year around. He produces
enough food for the family: two wife and 15 children. Selling fruits
and vegetables he afforded to pay expensive college fees for his son
Munyani. He is working 12 hectares of land.
Communal gardening: Developed in
the pour areas where mostly local community with the support of different
NGOs started collective gardens. Each household has its own part of
garden. Collective work is stimulating them to maintain garden well.
Crops are usually a surplus in household economy...
In Binga district, in the northwest
of Zimbabwe near the Zambezi River, are living one of the country's
smaller ethnic groups - Tonga people. They live largely without interferences
from the colonial rulers until 1957. The Zambezi valley was then flooded
to make way for huge dam and an electricity generating station at Kariba.
This is the poorest area in Zimbabwe and even the government is not
doing much for this people cut from the rest of country. In last years
some NGOs and World Bank gave some aid but is never enough. For example
they set seven water pumps in the large area of Sinakoma Ward but now-days
only two are working. The Tonga don't have the tools and the knowledge
to repair them. They dug wells in the sandy ground but they dry up.
The last water they catch and drink is detained in a provisory small-size
dam where cattle is getting the water and cooling between two rainy
seasons. And the Tonga are waiting for the food aid and for the solutions.
Nevertheless Tonga people are not a broken heart people.
In the past Tonga people were used
to rich alluvial soil that produced two or three crops a year. They
were moved to infertile land with little water without compensation.
Today they struggle to live. In the district there is no trace of infrastructure,
they have primary schools but few secondary schools. The expense of
school fees enables education. They have no clinic, no road, no water
and no electricity. In food production first they tried crops that withstand
dryness, like millet, rapoka and other small grains, but flocks of quelea
birds waited for this to be ripe and ate up everything. They tried maize,
but had to recon with elephants from the near national park. They survive
with little they produce on the land, making baskets, picking wild fruits
and brewing beer (germinating grains are used for brewing traditional
beer) made only by women. For Tonga selling beer is the most used way
of earning money. The District offers few job opportunities.
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