The Sunday News
Tinomuda Chakanyuka
ADAPT or die. This pithy dictum attributable to famous naturalist and geologist Charles Darwin in his theory of evolution may well describe the situation that 58-year-old Mrs Gladys Ncube of Amazon communal area in Insiza District, Matabeleland South Province, finds herself in.
For a long time, subsistence farming has been the bedrock of rural livelihoods, but over the years erratic rains due to climate change have left many grappling with food insecurity. Mrs Ncube, a widow, is no exception.
Insiza District, traditionally a semi-arid area, lies in the country’s climatic region five characterised by below average rainfall.
Climate change effects have further aggravated the rainfall situation in semi-arid areas like Insiza almost sealing the fate of communal farmers like Mrs Ncube.
However, typifying the human spirit to overcome challenges, Mrs Ncube has turned her fate around and is now one of the most successful communal farmers in her locality.
For decades, Mrs Ncube had been looking after her family using paltry proceeds from menial piece jobs as she did not realise much yield from her piece of land.
She literally lived from hand to mouth.
It was in 2009 when her fortunes turned around after she was introduced to conservation farming by a local NGO, Zimbabwe Project Trust (ZimPro).
Mrs Ncube had abandoned all her fields where she, for decades, futilely practised conventional farming, retiring her fate to performing menial jobs for small tokens, often in kind.
At first she was sceptical of the new farming method, which locals call aptly gatshompo, but a few years into the practice, Mrs Ncube has turned into one of the most avid advocates of conservation agriculture.
“I never used to harvest anything. I ended up abandoning farming because it didn’t give me anything. I had a family to feed so I had to look for other means of fending for them. I did piece jobs but still that was not enough to feed my family,” she said.
From her 0,4 hectare piece of land, where she practices conservation farming, Mr Ncube is now realising enough yield to feed her three children and seven orphaned grandchildren. She also gets surplus to sell.
Even in the 2015/2016 season, one of the country’s worst agriculture seasons in history, Mrs Ncube managed to harvest 10 bags of maize, enough to sustain her huge family.
She is looking forward to an improved yield this year, on the back of improved rainfall.
“This year I’m expecting two tonnes of maize from this piece of land,” she said with assuring confidence.
“If it wasn’t for conservation farming I wouldn’t be where I am today. This practice has changed my life completely. I can feed my family and send my grandchildren to school,” she added.
Mr Ncube and 300 other communal farmers in Insiza who benefited from training by ZimPro on conservation farming are testimonies of how communities can adapt to climate change effects.
While other communities are reeling in effects of climate change, Insiza communal farmers have taken the phenomenon by the scruff and are adapting with ease.
What is conservation agriculture and how is it done?
According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) conservation agriculture is a concept for resource-saving agricultural crop production that strives to achieve acceptable profits together with high and sustained production levels while concurrently conserving the environment.
There are several advantages of conservation agriculture, one of them being that it requires significantly less water use due to increased infiltration and enhanced water holding capacity from crop residues left on the soil surface.
Cornell University, College of Agricultural Science in New York asserts, “In Sub-Saharan Africa, as with other dry-land regions, the benefits of conservation agriculture are most salient during drought years, when the risk of total crop failure is significantly reduced due to enhanced water use efficiency”.
Mrs Ncube explained how she goes about her gatshompo (conservation farming).
“I don’t till the land excessively because that disturbs the soil. For maize I dig holes 15 cm wide and 15 cm deep which I space 90 x 60. I check the soil moisture first before planting,” she said.
According to experts excessive tillage of agricultural soils may result in short term increases in fertility, but will degrade soils in the medium term. Structural degradation, loss of organic matter, erosion and falling biodiversity are other effects of the practice.
Mrs Ncube says she uses organic fertiliser which she said was far more effective compared to other forms of fertiliser.
The widow is also a beneficiary of ZimPro’s pass-on-goats scheme, which has seen her herd growing to 12 over the years.
It is from the goats that she gets manure which she mixes with compost manure and use as fertiliser on her small piece of land under conservation farming.
The ZimPro pass-on-goats scheme has seen a number of communal farmers in Insiza improve their herd, with one Mr Collen Godfrey boasting 34 goats, which at some point were 57.
Under the scheme a select few farmers were given two does each, which when after producing offspring would be passed on to the next farmer until the rest of community benefits.
Communal farmers in Insiza District have embraced goat farming and conservation farming among other engagements as ways of adapting to climate change effects on livestock.
So far they have managed to beat the dreadful phenomenon.
Goats unlike other domestic animals such as cattle, can resist drought, hence they are the livestock of preference in semi-arid areas.
Mr Godfrey said goat farming had improved his life as he has managed to send his children to school from selling goats.
“I had 57 goats but some died of a kidney disease. Goat farming has helped improve our lives. I sell them to raise fees for my children, I get my milk from the goats and sometime I slaughter for our own consumption as a family,” he said.
Environment Africa country director Mr Barnabas Mawire emphasised the need for communities to come up with methods of adapting to and mitigating effects of climate change.
“Mitigation is when we try to slow the climate from changing through conserving forests. Trees are the only living organisms that can remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. We are therefore encouraging communities to plant trees so that we create what are called carbon sinks. We also urge them to avoid deforestation.
“Adaptation is when people try to cope with the negative effects of climate change. We encourage communities to engage in both adaptation and mitigation,” he said.
ZimPro executive director Mr Tobias Chipare said his organisation was committed to assisting farmers in semi-arid areas survive the grim effects of climate change.
“We are committed to improving the livelihoods of communities that is why we engage in such programmes. We train communities on conflict transformation, leadership among other aspects.
“The idea is to capacitate communities to live off their own resources and not rely on handouts,” he said.
ZimPro, which operates in six wards in Insiza has over the years assisted farmers through various projects which include irrigation schemes, pass-on-goats scheme, conservations farming, water harvesting, save-and-lend schemes as well as community and nutrition gardens.
All these projects have assisted in bettering the lives of communal farmers in the district.
While in other communities that are still riddled in denial, climate change is an abstract concept, for Insiza farmers it is a reality whose effects they have experienced and adapted to.
@irielyan
