Category: Agriculture
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Zimbabwe’s hunger crisis turns fatal
By Tatenda Chitagu MASVINGO, ZIMBABWE-There is a popular vernacular saying that goes; ‘Kange mbeu kurima kwakona.‘ Loosely translated, it means; ‘Better eat the seeds since farming has failed.’ This saying turned out to be true for a hunger-stricken family from the arid Mwenezi district of southern Masvingo province that consumed a meal prepared from treated…
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How seed fairs help small scale farmers revive long lost, first generation seeds
By Tatenda Chitagu BIKITA, ZIMBABWE-Since childhood, Ellen Mutsinze (55) has planted small, early generation grains to add variety to the family’s staple corn diet. She never imagined the once-looked-down-upon drought tolerant crops as a source of cash-until now. Climate change-induced droughts that have led to successive maize crop failures-compounded by increasing lifestyle diseases-drove increased demand…
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Water shortages sour cane out-growers’ sugar prospects
Tatenda Chitagu/Hazvinei MwanakaCHIREDZI, ZIMBABWE-Zimbabwe’s prospects for a sweet harvest of sugarcane grown mainly in the Lowveld region have been soured by an acute shortage of water spawned by the El Niño induced drought, farmers have said. This has ignited fears of sugar shortages for both domestic and international markets. El Niño is a natural climate…
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Mechanisation: the missing link for Zim smallholder farmers
By Tatenda Chitagu MASVINGO-The ease with which Magret Mapondo, a small-scale farmer from rural Masvingo district, processes her cow-peas harvest, is something to behold. Not so long ago, the 45 year-old farmer from southern Zimbabwe would take several days to thrash, then shell, using her bare hands, and winnow a few sacks of her cow…
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How agroecology has improved the lives of Zimbabwe’s smallholder farmers
By Tatenda Chitagu SHASHE, MASVINGO-Elizabeth Mpofu’s homestead resembles an island in sea of poverty. The lush green rapoko, millet, sorghum, orchard and banana plantation on the 63 year-old farmer’s twelve hectare plot illuminates the neatly structured houses in the dry and arid Zvemahande resettlement area, about 20 kilometers north-east of Mashava mining town, west of…
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Zimbabwe smallholder farmers’ battle for seed, food sovereignty
By Tatenda Chitagu MASVINGO-Loveness Ducha (61), a smallholder subsistence farmer from Shashe, Mashava in Zimbabwe’s southern Masvingo province, can now successfully control her diet from the indigenous crops she grows at her four hectare plot. The battle for food and seed sovereignty, however, was not a stroll in the park for the diabetes patient, who…