The Sunday News
Rutendo Mapfumo, New Ziana
The Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development recently hosted a farmers’ field day, to promote climate-smart farming practices for smallholder farmers. The event, held in Jambezi, Hwange, brought together farmers from surrounding communities to learn about new techniques to help them cope with the changing climate.
The field day, which was supported by the Smallholder Agriculture Cluster Project (SACP) ran under the theme “Promoting Resilience, Improved Nutrition Through Adoption of Climate Smart Value Chains”.
A 67-year-old Robert Dube, who is the owner of one small grain plot said small grain farming had proved to be the best in the face of drought.
“We decided to adopt small grain farming because the maize we had planted earlier was a write off due to no rain, but with the help of SACP and the knowledge we were of hydrogel technology, my family is food secure for the next season,” he said.
The Dube family is expecting to harvest 0,4 tonnes of sorghum from their 39×16 plot. However, hydrogel technology involves gel forming polymers that are insoluble water absorbing polymers designed exclusively for agriculture. They were developed to improve physical properties of soil, so as to increase water holding capacity in soils.
Speaking at the field day celebrations, Dr Godfrey Nehanda the National Project Co-ordinator, Smallholder Agriculture Cluster Project said traditional grains are part of the value chains identified for support within the SACP project.
Sorghum
“This last season, there has been a lot of emphasis on the need for farmers to plant crops that are suitable for their agro-ecological regions. It is in light of the above that farmers in areas, which receive relatively low rainfall have been encouraged to embrace traditional grains such as sorghum, finger millet and pearl millet,” said Dr Nehanda.
The project, which is co-financed by the government of Zimbabwe, International Fund for Agricultural Development (Ifad) and the Opec Fund for International Development (Ofid), aims to promote value chains for different agricultural activities including the traditional grains.
“As SACP, we will continue to mainstream climate smart agriculture practices in building resilience among smallholder farmers across the five provinces of Matebeleland North, Midlands, Mashonaland East, Mashonaland West and Mashonaland Central. I have no doubt that these demonstration plots will inspire us all in the pursuit for household food security and incomes through the Adoption of both conservation agriculture and the Adoption of traditional grains.”
The SACP project recognises the importance of climate smart agriculture practices and will soon be rolling on training in CSA, Business Development and financial Literacy, in addition to Group Governance and Gender Action Learning Systems for the 800 Agriculture Producer Groups that will benefit from the project.
“This is intended to equip smallholder farmers participating in the project, with the requisite skills to remain resilient and meet food and nutrition security needs whilst participating effectively in markets to earn income,” he said.
