Women’s farming co-op reaps rewards of bountiful season

07 Mar, 2021 - 00:03 0 Views
Women’s farming co-op reaps rewards of bountiful season Pfumvudza

The Sunday News

Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday News Reporter
WHEN officers from Agritex came to teach the women of the Bulawayo Urban Agricultural Horticulture Co-operative (BUAHC) how to farm using a new technique, they were welcomed with open arms by the 21 widows who farm on the three-and-a-half-hectare plot tucked between Nketa 6 and Nkulumane 5.

The officers had brought a new way of farming, an alien concept that the women had never used in the 23 years since the establishment of a cooperative meant for widowed women. The Agritex called this new concept Pfumvudza/Intwasa, also known as gatshompo.

With the hot September sun beating down mercilessly, they were shown the basics of Pfumvudza. Their resistance to this new way of farming was immediate. The sun was too hot and the work too hard, they complained. Farming is viewed as one of the pillars to improve people’s lives under the government’s National Development Strategy 1, which Government spearheading and funding a number of farming initiatives.

“At the time we were very angry with the people running the programme because we felt that we were being abused for no reason,” BUAHC’s treasurer, Ms Constance Ndlovu (58) told Sunday News.

“It did not make any sense for us but we did not know we were rejecting a bumper harvest. It felt like too much hard work in the heat for old women like us and we sometimes actually fell sick. Those days back in September were grueling and at different times the 20 widows felt that they needed to quit. After all, they had been farming here for over two decades without using this tiresome novel concept. A month into the new year, as they stepped on lush fields now putting on a green uniform, they would revise those thoughts and eat their words.

“We are grateful for the Pfumvudza programme because as you can see there has been a marked difference in what we have been able to achieve this. Before the season started, an Agritex Extension Officer called Rumbi came here to teach us about these techniques. This was back in September or October. From now onwards this will be a model that we will follow because it has worked wonders for us,” Ms Ndlovu said.

A glance at their fields will quickly tell one that the women of BUACHA have mastered the art of urban farming.

Sure, the urban soil can be stubborn and stony sometimes but they have found a way to make it work. On one particularly uncompromising patch of land, they have even stopped planting maize but have gone for sweet potatoes instead. They now know how to farm with the seasons, replacing tomatoes with green vegetables and or beetroot when the season calls for. They have come a long way from the days when they were hapless widows with no source of income after the loss of their breadwinners.

“We started this co-op in 1997 under the guidance of a councillor called Morris Dube. He gave us this place as a way for us to take care ourselves. We used to plant maize, vegetables and beans. At the time we mainly did it for the sustenance of the ladies in the co-op and we would divide whatever we got between us. Then we would sell what we didn’t need,” says Ms Ndlovu.

Life in the beginning was not so rosy for the women of the co-op. When it all began back in 1997, they used to water their crops with buckets, ferrying the precious liquid from a nearby borehole. It was tiring and agonising work. It is that sort of hard work and determination that they build their own water retention and distribution system which they simply call an “engine”.

“At the time there was a borehole from which we drew water,” a member of the co-op, Ms Thokozile Tshabangu told Sunday News. “We would harvest our crops and take them to Dube and he would sell them for us. From that money that we made bought this machine that you see now and we did not have to use buckets to water our crops. It cost us $13 000 back then in 1997,” she said.

Made up of members from Nketa 6, Nketa 8 and Nkulumane 5, the co-op has developed a symbiotic relationship with the community around it, with people living in houses dotted around the plot making sure that they get all their vegetable needs from the women’s co-op.

“As a cooperative, we share a relationship with the community. They support us and we support them. In addition, we are widows and so wherever we go, we go with our children. It is through this coperative that we have managed to get them to develop an interest in agriculture and also give them jobs to do to make sure that they’re not idle,” said Ms Grace Zulu (65).

Despite their undeniable hard work and the relationship, they share with the community, the widowed women have fell victim to thieves often. When Sunday News visited them, it was the morning after some sly operators had slipped into the plot and made off with few maize cobs. Unsatisfied with their heists on the field, thieves also harvest the fence that surrounds the plot. Even barbed wire and diamond mesh fences have not stopped the thieves.

“At the beginning we had fence right around the area but it was stolen. This is the third time that we have had to put up a fence. The first time we got one from Jekesa Pfungwa. Then after this was stolen, we were assisted by MP Modi and Mr Mushava. They helped us cover our debts because we were in arrears as our crops had been stolen so we had not sold anything,” said Ms Lydia Nhliziyo (61), the co-op’s manager.

If it was not for the thieves, the co-op’s security officer Ms Barbara Ncube (53) says, their returns would increase tremendously.

“The only thing that sets back are the thieves. They really give us a hard time and sometimes we will be celebrating when crops like beetroot start to show promise then all of a sudden, the thieves come and uproot it all. It’s like they can smell that our crops are doing well. They don’t care that we are widows or anything like that,” she said.

Despite the success they have enjoyed this year, the women believe they still have more to offer their families and the community around. With a little corporate help, they say, the sky could be the limit for the ambitious women of BUAHC.

“I wish we could get sprinklers so that we never sit on our hands between the season. We could plant other things in the meantime. The problem that we face is that we lose a lot of crops to thieves. We really suffer at their hands and it feel painful to watch our hard work go down the drain,” said farm manager Nhliziyo.

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