Achieving food security, building resilience & adapting to climate change
58 year old Locadia Chijumani looks at her grandchildren Andrew and Lutan playing as she explains how she has endured a tough life branded by long days of hard casual labor in order to survive. Over a decade of economic hardships and food insecurity has had adverse impacts on Zimbabwe’s rural vulnerable groups, the disabled, the elderly and children, but particularly it has stifled economic opportunities for women. Locadia, who resides in Gudyanga village in Chimanimani, like many women in Zimbabwe has not been spared. The prevailing drought conditions and food shortages have resulted in an increase in the price of grains, while the price for livestock continues to decline reducing household income - since livestock is one of the major sources of income in rural areas. Mothers and caregivers report to be forced to resort to one meal a day, having climbed from 5 to 17 per cent. (Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZIMVAC) Rapid Assessment Report 2016).
Chimanimani district is located in an agro-ecological region 4 and 5, in the Manicaland province of Zimbabwe. The area is characterized by erratic rainfall, sandy soils, hot dry weather and very little to no agricultural turnovers, exacerbated by the changing climate. Here, rural farmers live under risky conditions. Many grow low-value cereal crops that depend on a short rainy season, a practice that traps them in a constant cycle of poverty and hunger. Reliable access to water in their gardens could change the farmer’s perilous situation. Poor crop yields are only expected to worsen as the climate changes, if recurrent El Nino-induced droughts are anything to go by. The smallholder farmers in this village, whose survival is heavily reliant on rain fed crop production, are not oblivious to these climate changes-this negative climatic turn has caused any hope they had left to dissipate.
Locadia Chijumani and her grandchildren, Andrew and Lutan © World Vision/Witness Nkomo
“A few years back we would know that even if you did not have a job or constant income you could still feed off the ground (yields) but with each year the rains are getting less and less and this year they were too heavy and washed away all our young crops!”- Locadia Chijumani-Chiramba, solar garden beneficiary.
ENSURE (Enhancing Nutrition and Stepping Up Resilience and Enterprise) a 5 year USAID–funded food security programme is operating concurrently with the local World Vision Area Development Programme (ADP) against this background. Both projects aim to improve the livelihoods of the men, women and children in this area besought by challenges including low productivity, declining soil fertility, poor access to agricultural water, outdated and unsustainable farming and limited access to markets and financial services. Given the context, reliable crop production, which could help Locadia to increase her income and well-being, can only be achieved through improved agricultural water management, primarily irrigation.
Integration
World Vision Zimbabwe, in a bid to reduce the silo approach within its ADP structures, is promoting cluster programming. This process, which increases operational efficiency, as resources are leveraged and duplication of efforts are reduced, is a more pragmatic approach to programming, while still ensuring the same community impact. In 2016, the Chimanimani and Nyanyadzi ADPs decided to complement the efforts of the ENSURE programme. The ADPs would provide all materials to improve and establish wells, small-scale irrigation schemes and solar-powered gardens. The ENSURE program would provide the expertise (engineers, Food for Assets (FFA) officers and monitoring staff), as well as the sorghum to be given to the FFA workers.
Together, they would work to bring back hope to these villages!
Manicaland province had the second highest proportion of households with inadequate water for domestic and agricultural use in all of Zimbabwe, standing at 40.4 per cent in 2016 (ZIMVAC). Since inception in October 2016 the projects have supported irrigation interventions to ensure improved harvests. This was done by rehabilitating and establishing irrigation schemes, as well as mechanising high yielding water points to support solar powered drip irrigation systems. Access to clean and safe water by mechanising the few available high yielding boreholes and moving water to where people are significantly reduced distance travelled to the nearest water source, which initially was up to 8 kilometers in some areas.
Chiramba solar powered irrigation scheme in Chimanimani © World Vision/Witness Nkomo
And the benefits?
The 3 solar powered gardens are 2 hectares each. Each garden accommodates a total of 80 plot holders with each plot holder owning 0.025 of a hectare. A total of 2,550 households will indirectly benefit from the initiatives, and using an average household size for the area of 4.2 (Manicaland Census 2012 Report), this translates to 10,710 people benefiting. Immediate benefits are in the form of food rations of 50 kilos per month, which were provided to the FFA workers, with 690 households benefiting from a total of 224 metric tonnes of sorghum.
Modern irrigation often means multi-billion dollar projects like damming rivers or building canals, but the drip irrigation used in the solar gardens conserves water by delivering it directly to the base of plants-a technique that also reduces fertilizer runoff. Each farmer can produce more value on less land in most cases and not be as impacted by the whims of the rainy season. Having more disposable income will also reduce vulnerability to food insecurity.
This economic development can be a form of adaptation to climate change too.
These plot holders are so excited about their impending first produce (tomato) that will be harvested in May, 2017. One woman mentioned she would channel her proceeds from the tomato sales into her Village Savings & Loans activities, while another looked forward to a year of not worrying too much about school fees.
“We always knew that these ever increasing temperatures had to come as some kind of blessing from above. Now look, World Vison is turning God-given and free sunlight into a means of farming so that we can buy food, sell yields and send our children to school!” - Nomatter Gunanga,World Vision ADP Volunteer and Beneficiary
What will the future look like?
Of the 23 wards in the Chimanimani area, the ADPs and ENSURE currently only operate in a total of 11 wards, giving room for expansion as need presents. Expertise and knowledge of how to execute such projects is fully present in the organisation as national, district, ward and village level trainings were conducted. The teams recognise that for solar projects to work it takes more than just giving people irrigation kits; there is need for technology, management and water access. Benefits of the created assets are countless even after the programmes have exited the areas; long-term nutrition for children, improved household income, which will support household educational as well as medical needs, and also the invaluable skills of operating and benefiting from solar powered irrigable land for generations to come.
Bright Katsarura tends to his tomato plants in Chimanimani, Zimbabwe | ©World Vision/Witness Nkomo
A beneficiary from the Chiramba solar-powered irrigation scheme, Bright Katsarura added that they have a committee in place to oversee the management of the asset as involvement of the community from the onset created a sense of ownership. “This scheme is ours, its maintenance and upkeep is therefore in our hands and we shall never go back on that. We have actually created a fund reserved for repairs and maintenance of this scheme.”
Irrigation is really appealing in that it lets one do things that break the cycle of low productivity, which leads to low income and translates to food insecurity. By accessing and selling the vegetables all year round, households will be able to purchase other staple foods during the lean season. Of all the benefits the farmers can get from these irrigation systems, growing outside the rainy season and producing more diverse and profitable crops are most important for adapting to climate change.
As for Locadia, when asked for her last thoughts, she retorts, “Now I can save all that time and energy I used providing labor in other people’s field far away and plough my own plot. The livelihood of my grandchildren and I will be transformed greatly-thank you World Vision!”
This project is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The contents of this webpage are the responsibility of World Vision, Inc. and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.