14 November 2009
Guruve — For most communal farmers, having no cattle for draught power makes all the difference between timeous land preparation and a good harvest.
But not so for many smallholder farmers in Guruve district in Mashonaland Central, where lack of draught power has not stopped villagers from trebling their harvest.
Over the years it is farmers with draught power who used to be the most successful. That trend is fast changing.
The reason: the introduction of a new inputs support scheme for farmers who practise zero tillage.
The programme is being implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) under its European Union Global Food Security Facility Scheme, which is meant to foster a rapid response to rising hunger, especially in developing countries.
About 10 000 farmers in Guruve district have over the last three years benefited from the programme.
Giving their testimonies after receiving seed maize and fertilizer, farmers from Ward 5 in the district commended FAO for the programme, saying it had transformed them from being "beggars to suppliers" of food.
"Over the years I always failed to benefit from the first rains because those with draught power would only lend me their draught animals and equipment after they had finished ploughing their own fields," said Laiza Whande, 62, one of the 775 beneficiaries from Ward 5.
As a woman, it was always difficult for Whande to access tractors provided by the government to assist farmers.
She doesn't need them anymore.
"I have already dug 11 200 holes, and I will put the fertilizer in the holes right away because the rains may start anytime. By the time rains start I will be ready to plant.
"Since I started zero tillage, my output has been increasing year after year and for the first time I had some surplus to sell."
While the farmers say the programme is the best under their circumstances, they believe it still has some gaps that need to be addressed urgently.
"They should also provide top dressing fertilizer, because most of us still face many challenges accessing it," said Dorica Tsongoro, another farmer.
"I believe yields will improve a great deal when they also provide top dressing fertilizer.
"At the moment we just use Compound D and that is it. This is not good for the crops."
Judas Phiri, a senior supervisor for the Sustainable Agriculture Trust (SAT), which is distributing the inputs on behalf of FAO, said although there was initial resistance by farmers to zero tillage, the scheme was now increasingly popular.
"We prioritised those who do not have any cattle, followed by those with one or two cattle.
"We felt this would be useful to empower those farmers who do not have anything to use for farming," Phiri said.
Since the inception of the programme during the 2006/2007 farming season, SAT has carried a massive campaign to promote conservation farming through zero tillage.
Several training programmes have been held for the farmers to maximize output. "We train the farmers on the best ways of using fertilizer. One advantage with conservation farming is that it minimizes the amount of fertilizer that is wasted.
As part of the humanitarian community's response to growing food insecurity in the country, 176 000 smallholder farmers nationwide will receive inputs for the upcoming 2009/2010 summer cropping season from FAO under the EU Food Facility.
Inputs support schemes have worked in countries such as Malawi and Mozambique, where the government, private sector and the donor community have partnered to assist small-scale farmers.
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