INNOVATIVE agricultural practices and community-led initiatives remain key enablers in ensuring rural development and agrarian resilience in arid parts of the country.

Mrs Sarudzai Mboweni of Joseph village in Ward 1, Mwenezi District, has proven that it is possible to set up thriving agricultural hubs in the driest parts of the country.

The farmer is now growing crops, which include tomatoes, pepper, cabbage, and onions in sandy soils once depleted of nutrients, after embracing innovative agricultural practices that include mulching.

“We noticed that the soils here are sandy, and we started the mulching process using dried leaves and cattle dung. The community assisted us, and we paid them for supplying us with the cattle dung. After that, we sank boreholes but did not manage to get any water. We then came up with a way of getting water from the Lundi River using a 10-horsepower pump to draw the water. That is when we started planting vegetables, and to date, we are now producing 5 000 cabbages, tomatoes, and onions for sale. We supply schools, primary schools, and communities here. We also deliver in Masvingo,” she said.

Communal farmers in the area who are now replicating the project at their homesteads said climate-resilient agriculture will enhance food security and allow them to diversify their crops.

“We have learnt a lot from this programme, and we have already started replicating it at our various homesteads. The most important thing is that such projects ensure that rural communities in dry parts of the country, such as Mwenezi, are food secure. You know we are the most vulnerable when it comes to climate shocks and drought, but with such projects, communities can become climate resilient. Before the coming of this project in our area, the situation was dire, but from learning and embracing climate-smart agriculture like what the Mboweni family did, the situation has changed for the better,” a beneficiary noted.

Apart from improving nutrition in the surrounding areas, the project has also created employment for youths.

“This is a good project, a beacon of hope to the communities in this area. There are many youths employed here, and this project has not only made locals here food secure, but has also transformed them into agriculturalists,” Legislator for Mwenezi North Constituency, Honourable Master Makope said.

The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development, Professor Obert Jiri, who visited Joseph village this Saturday, said such success stories of climate-resilient farming demonstrate the potential for rural development and economic growth in the most challenging environments.

“Here in Region 5, in the impossible areas where we know that it is extremely dry, rainfall here is less than 400 mm per year, the soils are wasted; they are the worst of any soil you can find. But we see green here, and we see total resilience of our soils, of our farmers, of our communities. What we see here is also a total transformation of the mind, where the farmer believed they could utilise and turn around this area to become a green island,” he noted.

Meanwhile, the government has made significant progress in providing farmers in arid parts of the country with climate-resilient crop varieties, aiming to enhance agricultural productivity and food security in the face of climate change.