District benefits from dryland agriculture

Staff Reporter

THE Great Zimbabwe University (GZU) Innovation Centre for Dryland Agriculture in Chivi district is breathing a new lease of life to Chivi District through agriculture and empowering the local community to take charge of their own destiny.

Chivi lies under the agro-ecological Region 5, well-known for its prolonged dry seasons.

The centre is encouraging the local community to rediscover the power of more nutritious traditional grains better suited to their Chivi environment.

Last Thursday, a meeting attended by Chief Madyangove, village heads, GZU Vice Chancellor Professor Rungano Zvobgo and GZU members of staff who included, Gary Magadzire School of Agriculture and Engineering Dean, Dr Xavier Poshiwa, the community learnt about the benefits of drought-resistant and nutritious small grains suitable for their district.

Dr Poshiwa said the community would be provided with seeds and other inputs for growing traditional grains, such as millet and sorghum.

The community will sell the grains back to the university, creating incomes for farmers and a source of locally grown food for the region under contract farming. The University deliberately engaged Chivi residents at its Centre for Drylands Agriculture, in order to empower the community.

“Under the Integrated Skills Outreach Programme (ISOP), the University is building capacities, where people are receiving training in carpentry and building and awarded certificates after completing the programme. To date in Chivi 36 people have been trained and the 18 who successfully completed the programme were given certificates of competence,” he said. “GZU is implementing a revolutionary road runner chickens’ project in Chivi. Almost 3500 villagers will receive starter pack road runner birds to rear and these will be bought back by the university for sale to supermarkets. For the first, we will have road runners being sold in supermarkets just like the broilers.”

So far, the University has employed 40 people among them 11 women. Six are working on the road runner project, nine are working at the grain milling company. Others are building fish ponds for aquaculture project while the rest are building the administration blocks. Director of Business Development, Dr Tafara Majoni, said the projects at the centre are in line with the Government’s Vision 2030 of industrialising the nation.

His department was bringing in the third stream of income for the university through sales of the products. In an interview, Tungamirai Mudereri of Dizanadzo Village under Chief Madyangove, said they were excited that GZU was employing their children. As a result, there was reduced crime rate in their community.

John Hungwe of Denga Village said the GZU projects were well appreciated in the community, children were being educated to work for themselves and also the community was being developed.
Professor Zvobgo encouraged the Chivi community to embrace the capacity building initiatives and the jobs that they would have acquired so that people could work together for their families.
Chief Madyangove expressed his gratitude with the GZU projects for accommodating the local community.

He encouraged those contracted work diligently and not disappoint.