Chronicle Editor
Stephen Mpofu
Africa’s bread basket at independence in 1980 and with land reform introduced in early 2000 to buttress Uhuru and enhance self-determination, Zimbabwe would have continued to fill global village bellies, illegal Western sanctions or not; vicissitudes of sometimes catastrophic weather conditions wrought by global warming or no.
But that was not to be.
It is therefore no less than a God-send the news that the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) is to pump up US$30 million to set up a hub at the Matopos Research Station, in Matabeleland South province for research in small grains in Southern and Central Africa.
In 1500AD Portuguese explorers introduced to Africa non-indigenous food crop, maize, which became an instant hit across the continent, and receiving princely reception at market places owned by whites but run by black workers.
What followed and continues to this day can best be described as a tragic irony in the sense that small grains such as sorghum and millet produced by blacks received frowned, yes-also-come reluctant hand waves from the sons of the soil — on which the crops are produced — superintending the grain markets.
It is therefore no small wonder that Africans settled in rainfall-shy regions of the continent, including here in Zimbabwe, and dependent on small grains for their livelihoods progressively neglected these food crops in favour of maize even though the crop failed, as it has done in the country this year.
President Mnangagwa announced recently that Zimbabwe would import 800 000 tonnes of maize this year to off-set a food deficit caused by drought in many parts of the country.
The failed rains with the consequential droughts in recent years are indicative of the serious effects of global warming which results mainly from irresponsible human activities in many parts of the world with deforestation, veld fires and unmodified factory chimneys that continue to spew toxic carbon gases into the atmosphere as examples of human irresponsibility.
It therefore behoves on governments around the globe to educate citizens on the need to protect the environment for the safety of humans.
On the Zimbabwe home front, meanwhile, nutritionists might wish to go out into the country to educate people on the role that small grains such as millet and sorghum play in boosting health, and with dams being constructed in low rainfall regions to irrigate the small grains under Command Agriculture.
Attractive prices for small grains at the market place will naturally increase enthusiasm among farmers in drought-prone southern districts of the country to produce more small grains for sale and domestic consumption.
With their bellies surfeited, Zimbabweans and other people on the continent are wont to march resolutely into a bold new future developmentally.
Online Reporter