Chronicle Editor
Munya Simango
RESEARCH facilities that were recently established at eight of the country’s agricultural colleges are enhancing student learning.
The units were established by the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water, and Rural Resettlement with support from the European Union (EU)-funded Zimbabwe Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Services (Zakis) project.
Speaking during a tour of the colleges recently, the director of the Agriculture Ministry’s Department of Agricultural Education Dr Jotamu Dondofema said the research facilities are enabling the implementation of the Agriculture Education for Development Curricula (AE4D 5.0) which was launched in July last year.
“The units are in line with Pillars Three and Five of our new curriculum, whose focus is on research and entrepreneurship. For students to appreciate these aspects of agriculture, we have a module where they participate in mini-research projects on animal and crop production, veterinary services, and agribusiness,” said Dr Dondofema.
The colleges have partnered with the Agronomy Institute, the Crop Breeding Institute and the Livestock Research Department of the Ministry’s Department of Research and Specialist Services (DR&SS) to conduct trials and demonstrations at the newly-established research facilities.
Dr Dondofema said: “This season the DR&SS institutes are facilitating student exposure to research at the trial and demonstration units.
They are working with students on mini-projects that include evaluating the performance of different crop varieties, comparing the effect of foliar fertiliser to that of Ammonium Nitrate, and the effect of inoculating soya beans with rhizobium.
“This helps students to understand crop and livestock research processes; from setting up the crop and pasture demos and trials, animal nutrition evaluation, data collection, data analysis and report writing.”
Commenting on the developments, the DR&SS acting deputy director for the Department of Livestock Research Mr Clayton Kapembeza said: “Zakis has built the research capacity at the colleges, and this has provided a learning platform for students to analyse the challenges in different value chains to come up with better agriculture practices.
This is remarkable progress as there are many mini-projects in which students can participate. These include fisheries, indigenous chicken, cattle pen fattening, and piggery.
The students can explore issues such as feed cost reduction through on-farm feed formulation, as well as improving egg and meat production and productivity.”
Mr Kapembeza added: “The agriculture extension, education, and research linkages enable students to evaluate challenges faced by farmers across the country and offer solutions to address those challenges and this contributes to improved agricultural productivity.
In conducting mini-research projects through research, students are capacitated through practical training and provision of hands-on experience.”
The Zakis project is part of the €40 million, EU-funded Zimbabwe Agricultural Growth Programme (ZAGP), which seeks to contribute to the development of a diversified and efficient agriculture sector.
The project is implemented by a consortium of local and international agricultural specialist NGOs, comprising Welthungerhilfe (WHH), International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (IcrisaT), Community Technology Development Organisation (CTDO), and Sustainable Agriculture Technology (SAT).
Online Reporter