e4m for agric research

Sifelani Tsiko Agric, Environment & Innovations Editor

Boosting agriculture in the midst of climate change needs careful research and yesterday the European Union came on board to back Zimbabwe’s efforts with an extra €4 million.

Speaking at the launch of a four-year research project on climate smart agriculture, head of cooperation in the Delegation of the EU in Zimbabwe, Franck Porte, said the EU was committed to supporting all Zimbabwe’s initiatives to boost agricultural production in a way that increased resilience and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

“We are all aware of the effects of climate change and that something has to be done immediately to address these effects. The realities of a changing climate are increasingly affecting farming and forestry worldwide and notably in Zimbabwe,” he said.

“Drought changes in rainfall patterns, extreme weather events, pests and diseases, increasing occurrence of forest fires and so on. They all affect farm and forest production, food production and farmers’ income.

“The EU, as a committed leader in this area, is fully aligned and supportive of Government efforts to ‘climate — proof’ its agricultural sector. The project of Resilience Building through Agro-ecological Intensification in Zimbabwe (RAIZ) is the concrete illustration of its commitment as the research component of the ‘Team Europe Initiative’ for a greener and climate smart agriculture.”

The EU has funded the RAIZ project which will be implemented in Murehwa, Mutoko and Mudzi districts in Mashonaland East province to the tune of €4 million.

This project will be implemented by a consortium of the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center and the University of Zimbabwe.

Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development chief director responsible for agricultural advisory services, Prof Obert Jiri, hailed the EU for supporting RAIZ saying it will help to build the country’s resilience to climate shocks.

“This is a very important project for the country. It will help to strengthen the country’s resilience to climate shocks. It will also help us to bounce back better on issues of resilience,” he said.

“Issues around poor soils are of major concern to us. We are not ignorant to the issues that bedevil our agriculture. We need to partner and work together so that we come up with robust solutions, research that is impactful to livelihoods.”

Growth in Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector has come at the expense of environmental health, with soil degradation resulting in reduced productivity, threatening the country’s future crop supply. Prof Jiri said it was critical for the country to reinforce its food systems in a way that safeguarded long-term resilience.

“How do we take research forward? Research that does not impact on livelihoods is useless. I hope you will come up with research results that are not difficult to implement by Government. We need research results that can be easily mainstreamed countrywide.”

Prof Regis Chikowo, a UZ agronomist and RAIZ project member, said researchers must be at the forefront of helping farmers with solutions to reverse soil degradation trends and take climate-smart actions that could restore soil health.

“The country’s soil health has gone very low and there is a reduced response to fertilisers. The downward spiral of soil degradation results in low yields,” he said.

“Poor soils basically result in a maize poverty trap. It’s a poverty trap that we should try and solve. Good productivity could be attained through good and healthy soil. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says southern Africa will suffer climate change extremes. By 2050 it is estimated that maize yields will decrease by 30 percent.”

The RAIZ project will have a strong capacity building component, training a total of eight PhDs, four MPhils and several Msc candidates, targeting the academic curriculums and extension services as well as the participation of policy makers at district and national levels.

In 2018, Zimbabwe launched three policies to adapt and mitigate against climate change, including a Climate-Smart Agriculture policy to ensure that farmers adopt climate-hardy farming practices like conservation agriculture.

The Pfumvudza/Intwasa Programme – a low input sustainable agriculture approach on smallholder farming plots – has been successful for the past three years in promoting higher returns as well as enhancing household food and nutrition security.

In addition, the country also launched the 2020-2025 Agriculture and Food systems transformation strategy, which seeks to achieve a US$8.2 billion agriculture economy by 2025.

Zimbabwe also developed a 10-year (2018-2028) framework to facilitate the promotion of climate smart agriculture to help fight climate change and enhance the sustainable intensification of agriculture in the country.