Farming Through the Years

FARMING THROUGH THE YEARS

by Violet Ruria

We revisit our conservation agriculture project in Zimbabwe to see how transforming farming methods can transform lives.

More than 80 per cent of Zimbabwe’s population is dependent on local subsistence farming to earn a living. However, consistently poor harvests mean food insecurity is increasing and the majority of households live below the poverty line.

The Salvation Army has a long-standing partnership with Zimbabwean organisation, Foundations for Farming, which has been training farmers in conservation agriculture to ensure they can produce plentiful crops despite the challenge of inconsistent rainfall and drought.

The central premise of this method is farming the way God intended – to make the best use of the land in a respectful and careful way. This approach takes advantage of natural ecological processes to conserve moisture, enhance soil fertility and improve soil structure. By reducing the disturbance of the soil and mulching crops, soil moisture is retained, which is vital in an area of low rainfall such as this.

In the first phase of The Salvation Army’s project, a group of 29 small-scale farmers received training on how to use conservation agriculture to improve their yields. I first visited the project back in 2014 and met with some of the participants.

Honest Gudu was one of those farmers, and even in the early stages he had experienced the benefits of using these methods. He said:

‘My yields have doubled since I started using the conservation agriculture method. I used to expect 10 tonnes, now I get over 20 tonnes of maize which is more than enough to feed my family.’

Earlier this year I revisited the Chiweshe district, more than 100 km outside of Harare, and met once again with the farmers who have been part of the project since the beginning.

In the years that have past, all 29 farmers have continued to apply the methods they had learnt, such as mulching their fields to preserve soil moisture from evaporation, planting on time and using holes in straight lines during planting.

They each excitedly told me the benefits they have reaped since they adapted to using the conservation agriculture methods. These include the fact that they are now assured of greater harvests despite the prolonged dry periods, and they are less reliant on adding costly fertilisers. This is due both to their soils becoming healthier, and that they are now more able to predict when to plant their crops as a result of their training.

An important element of this project was the responsibility of the first participants to teach others in their villages – promoting community cohesion and ensuring a greater impact. The farmers shared how they have continued to train their neighbours and how they too are now experiencing the benefits.

One of the farmers, Stembille Machemedze, said, ‘We are now able to send our children to school since we are now selling the surplus maize harvest.’ As a member of her local Salvation Army corps, Stembille was also pleased to share that she can now help support her church financially with some of the money gained after selling her crops.

During this visit, I returned to Honest Gudu’s homestead. He led me to his one hectare land on which he still lives with his elderly parents, children and grandchildren. The mud-bricked and grass-thatched huts scattered within his land were a familiar sight I remembered from my visit four years earlier.

Honest (right) with his family

Honest is now 58 years old and has six children in school. They depend on him for school fees, food and clothing. He relies on his small plot of land to provide for his large and growing family, and must harvest enough to provide for a full year of food to eat, as well as surplus to sell and gain some money for other necessities.

When I stood on this same land four years ago it was full of healthy maize which towered overhead. This time, my visit followed a plentiful harvest, and as Honest generously shared with me some recently harvested cobs, our conversation took place beside a farm now clear and prepared for the next planting. Whilst the landscape was different, Honest had the same cheerful enthusiasm for the project and the method of conservation agriculture that was now second nature to him.

During this visit, he proudly told me, ‘I harvested 43 bags of maize during the last season. I plan to sell 23 bags of maize and spare 20 bags of maize for my family consumption.’ When I asked how he would use the money from the sale, he explained, ‘I will use part of it to pay school fees for my children and buy seeds for the next season.’

Unsurprisingly, Honest is keen to share the impact that switching to these methods has had, and to ensure that others can benefit too:

‘Once I realised that my one hectare of land could produce more bags of maize when I applied these methods, I could not turn back. I have become the teacher in my village and have helped all my neighbours learn how to use these methods.’

UPDATE 2021:

With the success of this initial phase, we scaled up this project and have now reached hundreds more farmers across ten new areas of Zimbabwe.

The 2021 Helping-Hand Appeal, Feeding Hope, features stories of people who have been part of this project.

Find out more at www.salvationarmy.org.uk/feedinghope