The ManicaPost
Samuel Kadungure
Senior Reporter
WATER is peace, life and development.
Yes, extreme vagaries of weather occur — with droughts and accelerating climate change shocks being experienced, making life difficult for rural folks practising rain-fed agriculture.
However, availability of irrigating water in arid zones can make a difference.
Irrigation can increase yields and production, protect against yield losses to variable rains, and enable growing of crops in dry seasons and of potentially high-value crops in extremely arid districts like Buhera.
Rural smallholder farming has the potential to play a central role in development and alleviating poverty, but is held back by lack of access to reliable water sources.
This is especially true of Buhera, an arid district.
Few villagers can afford to irrigate their crops, and low rainfall means that rain-fed agriculture is increasingly unsustainable.
There is a strong case for adopting drip irrigation and new methods of growing maize that combine judicious water use with increased yields.
Buhera receives very little rain and experiences frequent dry spells, droughts and high temperatures.
Its soils are over-exploited and infertile, and many fields are left untilled as a result.
Erratic rains means crops wilt before maturity, and patches of lifeless and sun-burnt crop residues are a common feature.
All that villagers plant, be it millet, sorghum, groundnuts, round nuts or maize are usually a write-off due to poor rains and prolonged hot weather, leaving the district being associated with zero harvests, and heavy reliance on food aid.
Classified in Natural Region Five, its seasons are unpredictable, leaving villagers confused and unable to plan.
Climate change experts place the blame for changing weather patterns on the increasing emission of gases, especially carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere.
Carbon dioxide, together with greenhouse gases like methane and nitrogen — are causing the earth to heat up.
As a result, poverty has become an epidemic, with lack of access to water an insurmountable obstacle to productive agriculture.
This makes villagers’ possibility of breaking out of the poverty cycle incredibly slim.
For women and children, this crisis is real. It affects them daily.
That is why small-scale drip irrigation is emerging as a top priority to boost food security, eradicate poverty, and build resilience against climate change shocks in the district.
Irrigation, which is the application of water to the soil to make available essential moisture for plant growth, serves as an insurance against drought, and provides a cooling effect on the soil environment for plant growth and development.
Water is indeed a precondition for human existence and sustainability of agriculture.
One needs to visit the homestead of prominent Mutare lawyer, Mr Misheck Mugadza, in Mugadza Village, Marenga, Buhera to appreciate that water can turn a desert into a greenbelt for human survival.
He is able to make a good income from his one-hectare plot, something he wants youths from the district to emulate and extricate themselves from poverty.
He has proved that drip irrigation can be the magic bullet for hunger solutions in the district.
His horticultural project include half hectare of green mealies, an acre of onions and tomatoes, vegetables, fruit orchard – changing stereotypes about what the district soils can produce.
The drip irrigation was installed in 2015, drawing water from a 45-metre deep borehole sunk in 2005, and powered by electricity.
“Drip irrigation is cheap and easy to operate. I draw water from the borehole using electricity, which I have also connected to seven households surrounding my homestead. I am responsible for the electricity bill, and the seven families surrounding my homestead work on the plot. I only have one worker who manages them,” said Mr Mugadza
“The idea is to challenge youths to stop crying for land, yet they have rural homes with derelict land. They should invest in sustainable agriculture when they get loans from the youth bank. They can survive from small-scale drip irrigation which is cheap,” said Mr Mugadza.
Mr Mugadza said drip irrigation provides a powerful management tool against the vagaries of rainfall, and makes it economically attractive to grow high-yielding crops and to apply the adequate plant nutrition and pest control required in order to obtain the full potential of these modern varieties.
This aspect gives agriculture a prominent role in poverty reduction.
“I produced two and half tonnes of onions and raked in US$3 000 in March. Now I have 31 000 plants of onion, where I am expecting to harvest five tonnes. From this crop, I will get not less than US$6 000, which is a lot of money by any rural standard. I sell a pocket of onions for US$10,” he said, adding that one fundamental component of highly productive and rewarding farming business is to have different income streams.
“By mid-November, the green mealies will be ready for the market as well as tomatoes. I will be selling different crops — all produced from Buhera — till March 2022. At any given point, I must have produce on the market to improve liquidity and address the overall top-line of the enterprise.
“Crop diversity spreads risk, and one can hardly have smooth operations and financially sound farming business without having multiple sources of income. We are turning the desert into a green belt. Let us do it, nyika tisu,” he said.
