The Chronicle

BULAWAYO, Monday, November 6, 1967 — Farmers from the district attended the field day last week at the Mlezu Government Agricultural School in the Que Que reserve — a school which has 270 resident African students from all over the country.

Established in January 1959, it consists of 2 000 acres through which flows the Mlezu River. At that time all the arable land on the farm was under cultivation and, as it had been under continuous cropping for a long time, the soil was without humus and completely “worked out”.

The soil is sandy, shallow and poorly drained and is similar to much of the granite sand in the Midlands.

The teaching at the school is designed to train African extension assistants for the Ministry of Agriculture and to give a sound general course in agriculture which will produce trained technicians. Teachers are also trained in agriculture for the junior secondary schools.

The principal, Mr HF (Fritz) Meyer, who has a staff of eight European and 10 African instructors, said teaching at the school was not unlike the apprenticeship served by any artisan in any industry.

All the students work on projects under supervision. The practical work was supported by classroom teaching on two days a week. Mr Meyer said: “The big difference however, is that our farming is specific to the ecological region in which we are situated. We do not include projects that would be economically unsound for the local farmer because of local soil and climatic conditions.”

One of the school’s showpieces is its 150-strong Manguni beef herd – the breed which is indigenous in the Midlands. “Half the cattle in the country belong to Africans and at a school like this you must show them what can be done with these animals,” said Mr Meyer.

At the last Que Que Christmas fatstock show the school’s cattle fetched the highest prices.