A climate smart approach to sustainable agriculture
WITH climate change increasingly becoming mankind’s greatest existential threat, climate smart agriculture has become a buzzword but effective responses to the crisis remain dispersed and far between.
In Zimbabwe, as in every other developing country indeed, sustainable responses to climate change and the grave threat it poses to livelihoods in general and food security in particular are even less convincing.
It is in light of this gap between problems encountered and solutions offered that Aquaculture Zimbabwe, a non-governmental organisation based in Masvingo, is making a notable difference in the most vulnerable communities through a multi-pronged approach.
Through its Integrated Agriculture, Aquaculture Production System, the organisation is implementing diverse projects in Bikita, Chirumhanzu, Gutu and Masvingo Rural districts.
In Masvingo Rural ward 18, Aquaculture Zimbabwe has assisted the Njovo community to build a dam through a scheme called the Food Assistance for Assets Programme.
With support from the World Food Programme ( WFP), the United States Agency for International Development (USAid) and government partners, Aquaculture Zimbabwe has facilitated natural resource reclamation and conservation in a manner which supports livelihoods for the Njovo community under Chief Shumba.
The project begins in Zezai village with a water harvesting exercise involving the building of a 186-metre trench along the Mashate-Veza-Jerera gravel road.
At Njovo Primary School, a few metres away, an even bigger project to harvest run-off water from a rock is being implemented by another contingent of enthusiastic villagers. A massive water tank with a holding capacity of 80 000 litres is being built at the base of a hillock which overlooks the school to the north. The stored water will be accessible to the school for gardening and sanitary purposes, thus ending decades of water poverty.
At the edges of the school beyond the road sits a wetland, itself another flagship section of the project where some 20 beehives stand secluded in verdant thickets of wild bush and grass.
The places have been neatly-fenced as part of the reclamation and protection process. The contrast between the overgrown protected area and its heavily trodden, overgrazed immediate environs cannot be starker, with the fenced area’s vegetation providing cover for delicate soils beneath.
The wetland is bound by Masvora River at its southern edge down where Aquaculture Zimbabwe has facilitated the construction of the giant Njovo Weir which has already given rise to new agricultural activities by hundreds of villagers.
This is a place which clearly captures the Integrated Agriculture, Aquaculture Production System which combines market gardening, orchard, poultry and fisheries.
The combined projects, which are dominated by women, have aroused the kind of hope that all people need to get by.
More interesting is that the set up at Njovo has its lookalike a few kilometres away in the Tadzembwa community of ward 17 where the Chebvute weir, community garden and fish ponds project — which now sustains over 500 households – has also taken shape.
“I feel we have survived a desperate situation as a community, thanks to the intervention by Aquaculture Zimbabwe and its partner WFP. We realised that the rains we received per year were no longer enough to support our agricultural potential and sustain our livelihoods so we proposed this kind of a project. I am glad that barely three years after construction work began, we have realised a profit from this work,” said project chairperson Julius Swadi.
In between the Chebvute and Njovo projects exists many households that are making use of new climate-change mitigation agricultural knowledge acquired from Aquaculture training programme.
One beneficiary is Elimon Mawire, who is practising a farming method known locally as pfumvudza. Mawire said the method helped to conserve both manure and whatever little moisture that the soil could retain with every rain drop.
He said he would also be eager to participate in the farming of small grains which are drought-tolerant.
“I would very much be willing to invest my energies more on millet and sorghum because unlike in the past, we no longer have reliable rainfall,” said Mawire.
Several other villagers have embraced key-hole gardens which are a brilliant method of growing vegetables right on the homestead using little water. Several other soil and water conservation practices are being implemented at household and community levels.
Getting an opportunity to see these initiatives gives one an opportunity to appreciate how ordinary people, with capacitation from capable partners, are working to make Sustainable Development Goals Number 1 Ending Poverty, Number 2 Zero Hunger and Number 13 Climate Action a reality.