adminCommonly known in Shurugwi as Madzibaba, Mr Gara has, since 2009 been pursuing his dream, outside mining, which is farming. Driven by a desire for farming, Mr Gara cast a blind eye on weather conditions associated with the mineral rich town of Shurugwi, to clear a 10-hectare piece of land in Riversdal. The area receives annual rainfall of between 650mm to 800mm.
Shurugwi lies in agro-ecological region three and the majority of Shurugwi residents are into mining with little farming, mainly subsistence.
Despite the harsh weather conditions of the area, Mr Gara planted maize on his cleared piece of land. He surprised many when he became the 2010 Shurugwi District Farmer of the Year in his maiden year as a farmer.
“It was just a trial and error but it came as a surprise as well to me that my crop did very well and I got about 20 tonnes of maize. Officials from the Department of Agritex were impressed and I was crowned the 2010 Shurugwi District Farmer of the Year,” said the soft-spoken Madzibaba Gara.
With the proceeds from the sale of his 2010 harvest, Madzibaba Gara decided to further invest in farming and purchased a water pump to use in irrigating his crops, thus augmenting the low rainfall in Shurugwi.
Madzibaba Gara could possibly have written his own piece of history to become one of the first commercial farmers in the heart of Shurugwi where almost everyone is thriving on mining with few subsistence farmers.
Shurugwi is a mineral-rich town lying along the Great Dyke.
Few subsistence farmers in the area harvest as little as 0,3 tonnes of maize per hectare owing to poor rainfall.
With the majority in Shurugwi being miners and many seeing no hope in farming due to the geographical location of the town and its climate, Madzibaba Gara sees an opportunity and is now into full commercial farming in Shurugwi.
The father of three has surprised many in the town to become probably the first farmer to venture into potato farming last year. Madzibaba Gara has erected a makeshift irrigation system to water potatoes that he planted on a four-hectare piece of land.
The one-horsepower engine pumps water from a nearby river to the central point of the field where the workers then use the bucket system to water the potato crop.
His neighbours have since nicknamed the piece of land where he is cultivating “Riversdale Farm”. Locals are now flocking to “Riversdale Farm” to buy potatoes.
Madzibaba Gara said he is expecting to cash in on the potato crop which residents used to import from other cities like Gweru or Zvishavane.
“It’s very amazing. No one expected that our potato crop would do well like this. We persevered and I want to give credit to my workers who worked very hard using our makeshift irrigation system to water the crop up to the end,” he said.
One of the workers at “Riversdale Farm”, Mr Collet Mapepa said they were working day and night on the field to water the potato crop.
“With our water source going dry, we were at times forced to work during the night whereby we would pump the little water available into some containers in the field before we then use some buckets to water the crop. You can imagine how difficult it is on such a big piece of land like this,” he said.
Mr Mapepa said they would also make use of some makeshift irrigation pipes when water levels in the river were high.
“After pumping water to a central point in the field we would then draw that water using pipes which have some used ‘Cascade’ drinks tied at the end. The plastic bottles were used as sprinklers,” he said.
Madzibaba Gara said he was planning to put his 10-hectare piece of land under proper irrigation where he intends to venture into market gardening with the potatoes being his major crop.
“I was very impressed by our first potato project which gave us good results although it was a trial and error. I am now working on putting up proper irrigation infrastructure where potatoes will be our major crop,” he said.
Madzibaba Gara, who says he has a passion for farming, appealed to the Government to identify more farms for allocation to determined farmers like him.
“The land reform programme was a very noble idea by our Government and we hope that the Government will identify more farms where some of us who are so passionate for farming can also benefit,” he said.
Online Reporter