Spren Mutiwi
Correspondent
MANICALAND Province has so far drilled over 500 boreholes in the 5 000 villages that constitute the province under the Presidential Boreholes Scheme.
This was revealed by the Director of Economic Affairs and Investment Promotion in the Office of the Minister of State for Manicaland Provincial Affairs and Devolution, Mr Munyaradzi Rubaya during the WFD-funded project monitoring exercise implemented by Towards Sustainable Use of Resources Organisations (TSURO Trust) in Chimanimani District to build resilience in communities with a special focus on diversity conservation.
Mr Rubaya said this after touring the farmer field school concept which was established by TSURO Trust at the Mubururu homestead in Chimanimani Ward Three.
“Let us work together to eliminate hunger and poverty in our communities. We appreciate development partners such as TSURO Trust which are coming in to assist Government in the realisation of Vision 2030.
“As Government, we will drill 35 000 boreholes in each village countrywide, and Manicaland Province has over 5 000 villages, and so far 500 boreholes have been drilled. More will be drilled during the course of the year until every village has benefited,” said Mr Rubaya.
He underscored that by Year 2030, every village should have access to clean and safe drinking water, with the same being channelled towards agricultural purposes to enable communities to engage in meaningful productivity.
Mr Rubaya called upon development partners to incorporate the rural development accelerator model in their projects proposals in order to address the needs of the communities.
“We expect development partners to tailor-make their programmes, and fit in the model, and integrate the interventions in line with Government’s Vision 2030. We need to integrate more so that we create sustainable projects that have a complete economic development turnaround.
“Our common goal as Government and development partners should be modelled on total development engagement,” he said.
He revealed that Government is fully committed to address food security and move towards income security.
“Our first priority is to address poverty and food security issues in our villages, but we need to go beyond that, and create income security for our villages through sustainable and viable projects,” said Mr Rubaya.
Under its WFD-funded project which will run until 2028, TSURO Trust is working around building resilience in communities with a special focus on diversity conservation.
So far, the organisation has successfully established five farmer field schools under its agro-ecology thematic area.
The provincial monitoring committee had the opportunity to appreciate how the Farmer Field School model works, with Mr Obert Mubururu, taking through delegates and villagers on the demonstration plots, where the 27-member grouping learn from, and later replicate the same at their respective homesteads.
The Mubururu family have incorporated different agroecological principles on the farmer field school, including demarcating demonstration plots, featuring Bokashi, cattle manure plot, goat manure plot and chicken manure plot, alongside a control plot for comparison.
They have incorporated water harvesting techniques and Green Manure Cover Crop.
As a result of the adoption of agroecological principles, the family is anticipating better yields this year.
The delegation later toured the Holistic Land and Livestock Management at the Jinga Cluster to get an appreciation of the project intervention.
Under the WFD project, TSURO Trust has redesigned Holistic Land and Livestock Management, and the project intend to remove the herder labour intensive process through incorporating movable solar powered paddock fences, provision of solarised boreholes.
Currently, TSURO Trust has built overnight kraals and established spray race for tick control purposes. These interventions are designed to contribute to breed enhancement, pasture regeneration, and comprehensive ecological restoration, thereby fostering a more resilient and sustainable landscape.
The delegation was impressed with both hardware and software investment under the Holistic Land and Livestock Management (HLLM) which included the establishment of proper kraals, training of herders, provisions of heavy duty tents for herders.
In addition, herders received basic para veterinary training to equip them with added herding skills.
HLLM secretary for Jinga Cluster, Ms Melody Tizwane, said since 2021, the livestock owner membership has been on an increase from three women and 11 men to the current 27-membership, with additional 20 more non-livestock members having joined the programme.
“This year, we now have seven women and 20 men under the HLLM cluster. 20 non-livestock members have also joined.
“We have 248 cattle headed by our trained herders under our Jinga Cluster, and we use a map to decide on the grazing arrangement within the six paddocks established. We have a grazing plan that is followed religiously, and this allows the rangelands to generate and improve forage in the area,” she said.
Village head Tinashe Jinga said the Holistic Land and Livestock Management had already started bearing fruits in the area with huge impact on land regeneration and forage having been realised, and is optimistic that by 2030, the Jinga Cluster will be a model nationally.
“By 2023, we believe this programme will have transformed the state of our rangelands, and regenerate the pastures and the land through controlled grazing programme which we implement under the project
“TSURO Trust has also assisted us with the training of our herders, and we have already started to see the positive results in our rangelands, even fellow livestock owners from neighbouring villages have also joined in,” said Village head Jinga.
TSURO Trust head of programmes, Mr Stephen Majee said the farmer field school concept uses a bottom-up approach to extension services, where farmers identify problems and solutions related to their agricultural practices through experimenting on their field, documentation and evidence generated together as a working group.
“The farmer field school brings ownership to the participants, and as an organisation, we will support farmers for the next five consecutive years. Last year, the farmers in Chimanimani low-veld area decided to make use of Bokashi, goat manure, cattle manure and chicken manure, this year the farmers will try something else, and we are there to support them.
“Each farmer field school identify its preferred area of intervention and at the end of each season, farmers will be able to own the experiments and results achieved,” said Mr Majee.
He noted that the organisation has village based development plans which helps to design programmes that addresses and speak to the needs of the rural communities.
“TSURO Trust co-design its projects with communities, and we also engage the relevant line Government ministries in order to incorporate the Government vision in the planning process
“Already we have village development plans, and these help to informs us in terms of interventions which are required within a given community,” he said
