Zimbabwe
GardenAfrica is committed to enhancing the existing capacity of local organisations which struggle to provide vital services in health, education and agricultural extension, in the absence of any coherent formal state provision. In consultation with these organisations, GardenAfrica has identified the need to promote improved smallholder productivity and trade, education and nutritional health.
Training for Trade Programme (2010-15)
The Challenge:
Average life expectancy for women in Zimbabwe is 34 – with one in seven people thought to be contracting HIV every day, and one in four children have lost one or both parents. Women and girls, to whom vital oral knowledge about natural agricultural systems has been passed, resort to commercial sex work, exposing them to HIV infection and gender-based violence. Mass migration to cities and neighbouring countries has depleted agricultural knowledge and labour. Many households have been forced to barter assets such as livestock and agricultural implements for food. HIV/AIDS, for which there are no reliable official figures, further complicates food security for vulnerable households - reducing their ability to produce or earn income.
Agriculture remains the primary livelihood means for 70% of rural Zimbabwe. In this context the production of high value crops such as maize, sugar and cotton are extremely resource and risk intensive, and are ill suited to the poor soil and rainfall conditions experienced on communal lands - which are not exposed to the politics of land reform. Promotional drives and drought relief packages (hybrid maize and fertiliser) have resulted in a shift to maize cultivation, causing concern about increased susceptibility of these export-driven systems to drought, compared with indigenous grains (sorghum and millet). Hybridised maize cannot be saved and sown for a successive harvests, so must be purchased each year, and is now failing in one out of every three years (with the highest reported failure being every other year).
Sustainable farming strategies to increase soil organic matter (OM) are now urgently needed, as annual ploughing and soluble fertilisers (the cost of which continue to rise) destroy the OM content of sandy soils in five years and clay soils in 10 years, undermining household food security and incomes of rural producers. These factors have conspired to increase the susceptibility of smallholders to debt, drought and pests – creating almost continuous dependence on aid. OCHA reported that up to seven million people (70% of the population) are regular recipients of food aid.
Our Response:
To promote and extend adaptive smallholder farming practices to enhance resource and food security through the establishment of organic producer and trading networks in Zimbabwe.
This project will work with producers and partners to:
• Adopt natural, high-yielding practices for local food & resource security
• Support the establishment of a network of organic producer associations
• Facilitate entry to organic markets
• Inform agricultural and trade policy
Result: The establishment of a network of resource and food secure smallholder associations with increased production capacity, status and access to market.
Collaborating Partners:
• Fambidzanai Permaculture Centre (link – as per partners page)
• ZOPPA (link)
• Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
• Practical Action
Living Classrooms
Under-resourced schools across Zimbabwe have, for the past few years, received little or no funding for infrastructure, materials or salaries. As the international community grapples with the ethics of releasing essential funding for education, there is an opportunity to reinvigorate educational practices through the creation of sustainable schools in Zimbabwe which support learning as well as nutritional and psychosocial needs.
GardenAfrica is working with local partner, SCOPE to develop a more cost effective strategy whereby value is added to their own extensive experience and materials to integrate garden activities into lesson plans. There is currently an appetite for extending garden-based activities at schools towards providing teachers with the skills to deliver subject areas with direct links to the garden.
Collaborating Partners:
• SCOPE
• ReSCOPE
• SEED
• Curriculum Development Unit (of the Ministry of Education, Sport and Culture)
Make a Donation to GardenAfrica
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Training for Trade Programme (2010-15)
The Challenge:
Average life expectancy for women in Zimbabwe is 34 – with one in seven people thought to be contracting HIV every day, and one in four children have lost one or both parents. Women and girls, to whom vital oral knowledge about natural agricultural systems has been passed, resort to commercial sex work, exposing them to HIV infection and gender-based violence. Mass migration to cities and neighbouring countries has depleted agricultural knowledge and labour. Many households have been forced to barter assets such as livestock and agricultural implements for food. HIV/AIDS, for which there are no reliable official figures, further complicates food security for vulnerable households - reducing their ability to produce or earn income.
Agriculture remains the primary livelihood means for 70% of rural Zimbabwe. In this context the production of high value crops such as maize, sugar and cotton are extremely resource and risk intensive, and are ill suited to the poor soil and rainfall conditions experienced on communal lands - which are not exposed to the politics of land reform. Promotional drives and drought relief packages (hybrid maize and fertiliser) have resulted in a shift to maize cultivation, causing concern about increased susceptibility of these export-driven systems to drought, compared with indigenous grains (sorghum and millet). Hybridised maize cannot be saved and sown for a successive harvests, so must be purchased each year, and is now failing in one out of every three years (with the highest reported failure being every other year).
Sustainable farming strategies to increase soil organic matter (OM) are now urgently needed, as annual ploughing and soluble fertilisers (the cost of which continue to rise) destroy the OM content of sandy soils in five years and clay soils in 10 years, undermining household food security and incomes of rural producers. These factors have conspired to increase the susceptibility of smallholders to debt, drought and pests – creating almost continuous dependence on aid. OCHA reported that up to seven million people (70% of the population) are regular recipients of food aid.
Our Response:
To promote and extend adaptive smallholder farming practices to enhance resource and food security through the establishment of organic producer and trading networks in Zimbabwe.
This project will work with producers and partners to:
• Adopt natural, high-yielding practices for local food & resource security
• Support the establishment of a network of organic producer associations
• Facilitate entry to organic markets
• Inform agricultural and trade policy
Result: The establishment of a network of resource and food secure smallholder associations with increased production capacity, status and access to market.
Collaborating Partners:
• Fambidzanai Permaculture Centre (link – as per partners page)
• ZOPPA (link)
• Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
• Practical Action
Living Classrooms
Under-resourced schools across Zimbabwe have, for the past few years, received little or no funding for infrastructure, materials or salaries. As the international community grapples with the ethics of releasing essential funding for education, there is an opportunity to reinvigorate educational practices through the creation of sustainable schools in Zimbabwe which support learning as well as nutritional and psychosocial needs.
GardenAfrica is working with local partner, SCOPE to develop a more cost effective strategy whereby value is added to their own extensive experience and materials to integrate garden activities into lesson plans. There is currently an appetite for extending garden-based activities at schools towards providing teachers with the skills to deliver subject areas with direct links to the garden.
Collaborating Partners:
• SCOPE
• ReSCOPE
• SEED
• Curriculum Development Unit (of the Ministry of Education, Sport and Culture)
Make a Donation to GardenAfrica
<< Back to Countries where GardenAfrica operates list
