Moffat Mungazi
Lovemore Kadzura
Post Reporter
AFRICA University is spearheading a programme aimed at enhancing food security in Manicaland, which will provide training for thousands of smallholder farmers in best practices for maize and sorghum farming, thereby boosting productivity.
The Transforming Africa Agricultural Universities to Meaningfully Contribute to Africa’s Growth and Development (TAGDEV 2.0) Programme, which has a 10-year timeline, is funded by the Mastercard Foundation and the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM).
Additionally, the programme will equip 16 000 young women and men with entrepreneurship and skills development training.
TAGDEV 2.0 will also facilitate training institutions to develop business incubation policies and practices, and to review their academic programmes to enable inclusive, entrepreneurial and digitally oriented young women and men.
In the agricultural sphere, the project covers several capacity building facets that include among others to support the training of trainers for extension agents to uptake their technical knowledge and to access skills to accelerate the dissemination of agricultural innovations, technologies and best practices such as the Pfvumvudza programme.
Officially launching the programme, Minister of State for Manicaland Provincial Affairs and Devolution, Advocate Misheck Mugadza said Government is open to collaborations that brings positive change to people’s lives, and said this is only possible when key players combine expertise and resources.
“The TAGDev 2.0 Project is focused on linking agricultural universities to communities through knowledge generation and skilling of youths in different facets along agricultural value chains. In this phase, Africa University, and its partner institutions, and organisations will focus on maize and sorghum value chains. The project aims to reach 16 000 young women and men in entrepreneurship and skills training and 20 000 smallholder communal area farmers to boost maize and sorghum productivity in dryland and high potential areas of Zimbabwe.
“As the project expands, its scope will include the skilling of students, out of school youths and community members in entrepreneurship and climate smart agricultural practices. Out technical and vocational education training institutions of Magamba and Mutare Polytechnic will play a key role in this aspect.
“Here in Manicaland, we are particularly excited about the project’s emphasis on inclusivity with a target of reaching 70 percent young women, 25 percent refugees and 15 percent persons living with disabilities. All these constituencies are dully represented within the youth population of Manicaland Province.
“The strength of this project lies in its collaborative nature. By combining our expertise, resources and perspectives of different institutions we will be able to achieve outcomes that would be impossible to attain individually,” said Minister Mugadza.
AU Vice-Chancellor, Professor Peter Mageto said due to factors such as climate change agriculture is evolving, hence the need to embrace innovation, technology and partnerships to fight hunger and poverty.
“Our vision is that we must produce a holistic transformational leader, not only for Zimbabwe, but for the continent of Africa. Our relationship with RUFORUM and Mastercard Foundation is one pathway that is going to make this possible. Our partnership with other local universities is our sign of how we want to commit ourselves into that relationship for the transformation of our country.
“It is not just agriculture. Agriculture is changing so fast. It is changing in a manner that is pushing us, therefore, to ask in our partnerships, how do we ensure that innovation, technology and the future world look like?
‘‘We are hopeful that with the support of Government, which we continue to receive whole heartedly, the various institutions that we are going to partner with, our presence in various communities, starting with Manicaland will be a key highlight of this transformative programme,” said Professor Mageto.
Online Reporter