Schools Project
2 February 2011
A television commercial by a well-known soft drinks manufacturer in the eighties featured young people proclaiming through song that they were the future of the world and the hope of their nation.
More than twenty years later, young people in Zimbabwe’s rural areas are sending out something of that same message not in song but through a simple farming method.
Taught by Foundations for Farming, the method is expected to reach more than 25 000 primary school children by the end of 2011.
”We launched this particular schools programme in partnership with UNICEF towards the end of last year and began by training 106 teachers as well as 10 District Educators Officers at two workshops held in Harare in November. They then took the principles of Conservation Agriculture back to their pupils in the different districts,” said Hubert Mawire, who leads the Foundations for Farming Schools Project Team.
The workshops have not been in vain. Since November, thousands of children from various districts including Zaka, Buhera, Chegutu, Gokwe North and Hurungwe have learned about four key aspects of Conservation Agriculture (CA). These are mulching instead of burning; minimal tillage; crop rotation; and high management.
”Before the training we conducted, the teachers’ knowledge of these principles was low but afterwards they told us that their understanding of CA had dramatically increased,” said Mawire. This was evidenced by the fact that the majority of teachers had gone on to not only teach the principles of CA to their pupils but to establish well-watered gardens at their schools in time for the national planting date of 25th November.
The decision to take Foundations for Farming to school children through teachers was practical. ”We realised that to reach a great number of young people it was best to work within existing structures. In places like Zaka and Buhera, Agriculture is taught as a subject by tech-voc teachers while in other districts this is done by garden masters. Time is allocated for pupils to work in the school gardens by these teachers and the students are now learning about Conservation Agriculture to a greater extent than before,” Mawire said.
”Most of the schools we’re working with are in rural and newly-resettled areas, which works well because the children from there are from farming backgrounds. Many will end up taking up farming as a vocation so we’re providing a way for them to learn sound and sustainable practices for the future,” he noted.
Surprisingly, farming would not be the preferred choice of a career for many of the children that Foundations for Farming is reaching. Rather, it is often a last resort and something they are pushed into because of circumstances. This is because farming is generally looked down on by young people in Zimbabwe, though in past years it was the mainstay of the country’s economy.
”Through working with teachers who in turn reach school-children, we aim to redress the importance, value and image of farming. We hope that today’s young people will take up farming as their first choice profession. Not only that, we want them to make it a full time occupation. This will help create much-needed employment and lead to sustainable food production in Zimbabwe in the future,” Mawire stressed.
Sabina Seldon