adminCharles Dhewa
Farmers, communities, agricultural value chain actors and supporting institutions can cope better with an unknown future if they have an adaptive capacity which is basically the ability to deal with change. Zimbabwe’s collective adaptive capacity is currently being tested by climate change and stagnating agricultural commodity prices on the international market.
While the number of years spent in school have been assumed to contribute to an individual’s adaptive capacity, it looks like individuals in the informal sector (who have not spent too much time trapped in classrooms and lecture halls) have more adaptive capacity in the prevailing Zimbabwean economy. Building on this perspective, our efforts to assess and measure individual and community adaptive capacity have to consider a blend of psychological, cultural, technical, financial and socio-economic factors. However, the way we over-rate the role of formal education in economic development does not seem to sufficiently take these factors into account.
Zimbabwe is at a juncture where the right kinds of knowledge should be mobilised – not just surface and shallow knowledge but deep knowledge. To this end, supporting the adaptive capacity of farmers, consumers, banks, researchers and local institutions should be one of the top priorities for our policy makers.
Wrong mix of knowledge for our economy
At the moment, in secondary school, young people are exposed to at least eight subjects. However, in real life it is difficult to see how the youth can integrate Shona, Mathematics, History, Geography, Science, Religious Studies, History, Food & Nutrition, Agriculture, Building and Science into practical solutions. The majority of students cannot leverage a basket full of these subjects to solve a particular challenge in a farming community, for instance.
As if Ordinary Level is not confusing enough, when students get to Advanced Level they do three subjects out of the eight or 10 studied at O-Level. It seems at O-Level emphasis is not on learning and understanding the 8 to 10 subjects but just use them as a base for choosing three subjects for A-Level.
Even if a student falls in love with all eight or 10 subjects at O-Level, if a specific combination of subjects doesn’t match entry expectations at A-Level, the student is forced to abandon subjects which could have shaped his/her career path. At university, the students are back to about 12 to 15 subjects under one course, for instance Agricultural Economics. The rationale for this zig-zag knowledge generation pathway is yet to be explained convincingly.
Choices students make must suit a specific purpose. There are students who end up doing a course just to fulfil the selection criteria not because that is where their passion lies. All this has enormous implications for career development and adaptive capacity.
A practical challenge shows up when experts who graduated from university where they did one course comprising 12 to 15 subjects now go to work with farming and rural communities. Plus or minus 60 percent of rural people have gone through O-Level but they can’t make a career out of the 8 subjects they struggled with in secondary school. We currently have engineers, nutritionists, agronomists, doctors and veterinary scientists going to work with farming communities whose cognitive environment they barely understand.
To a greater extent these experts find it difficult to share specialised knowledge with communities due to the disjointed knowledge and information within individual community members and academic disciplines whose capacities are different.
Among individual community members, one might have been good in history, another in Geography, yet another in Shona and another in athletics etc. A critical starting point should see experts working with communities to identify who was good in Geography, Science, Food and Nutrition, Fashion and Fabrics etc. This exercise can be done through community knowledge centres – enabling individual community members to build a career path around what they were good at in secondary school although they may not have achieved five O-Levels. Surely there should be ways those who scored two or three subjects can use their knowledge and passion.
The adaptive capacity of individuals and communities should be built on what they have spent many years doing. Experts can then work with individuals who have different capacities in conducting longitudinal research and building local expertise. At the moment, different experts do random sampling in communities yet individual community members may have difficulties in responding to social, economic, engineering, nutritional and historical questions. In this case, random sampling of households doesn’t lead to useful knowledge outcomes. At least 10–20 percent of the people can be good at responding to social questions because of their academic background. Responses can tell you something about an individual’s educational background.
Knowledge has to be stepped down to local people who are part of the immediate cognitive environment. Developments in each community should show that at least some members have been exposed to formal primary and secondary education. Longitudinal studies can tap into the potential of local school leavers who can work with teams of researchers. Why can’t those school leavers who were good in Geography work with a Geography teacher at a local secondary school? It is a waste of resources to dump those who came out with less than five O-Levels.
Due to our current emphasis on five O-Level passes, we close career doors for those who could not master five subjects but were good with two or three subjects around which they can build their own adaptive capacity and contribute to national economic development. For instance some people were good with Building, Metal Work, Fashion & Fabrics, Food & Nutrition, etc, but do not have opportunities to use this knowledge. It is also unfortunate that those who were good in sport at school park their skills or prowess as soon as they leave school. This waste of talent and resources compromises our national adaptive capacity.
Need to flip from teaching for exams and jobs to motivating individual learning
The skills mix from our universities and the whole education system is currently not designed for building adaptive capacity and economic revival. Reinforcing a culture of students to study for job-hunting is missing the point. We should start producing graduates who can deliver superlative services as opposed to just earning a salary. Let’s build our credibility on robust knowledge whose co-production we are part of.
This is a human capital issue. Our human capital notion has to be revisited. The Graduate School at the University of Zimbabwe is churning out a lot of MBAs. What are these graduates doing to create employment and address competitiveness in their areas of work? We have to get back to basics so that we understand where we are going. Part of this includes harmonising all aid money so that we see how it is contributing to the collective development and adaptive capacity at both individual and collective levels.
The importance of understanding
community dynamics
A critical part of building the adaptive capacity of individual farmers and other value chain actors includes exploring biophysical and socio-economic factors. The way farmers are grouped matters due to issues to do with the tragedy of the commons and group dynamics. Commonly managed initiatives like community grazing and common pool resources like water sources are often not properly looked after. his negatively affects community adaptation and resilience.
Most of our challenges have less to do with technology but socio-economic and institutional issues that affect adaptive capacity. No matter how well-intentioned and well-funded, most top down solutions either from Government or development partners can impede the adaptive capacity of farmers, communities, private actors and other players. For instance, some incentives often confuse rural people and propagate dependency while limiting a sense of ownership. Some irrigation schemes are not functioning because of the absence of a small nut which communities can simply buy if they want. Technically sound information is also missing.
Some humanitarian organisations are worried about food insecurity (food aid) as opposed to solving long term challenges. It’s easier to distribute food than address long-term issues. Development efforts should not just be about communities and institutions but also passionate individuals within those communities and institutions. Most of our engineers are talking about infrastructure, economists are talking about money while social anthropologists are talking about humanity.
Due to this failure to speak the same language most of our experts are struggling to bring adaptive capacity into communities. The majority of researchers are pushing piece-meal facts through journals and this is not contributing to the much needed adaptive capacity at grassroots level. How can we convince a farmer when an animal scientist is not talking to a crop scientist? We can’t target because we don’t know which technology to target and where?
It takes a creative individual to change things before everybody follows. Climate change is no longer newsworthy. Poverty and the collapse of ecosystems is imminent unless we urgently do something to address it in an adaptive manner.
We can’t continue undermining the wisdom of farmers as well as their technologies. Unfortunately, formerly educated experts are going to farmers as if farmers do not know anything. If this approach continues, social acceptability will remain the biggest challenge to building the adaptive capacity of farmers and communities.
Most researchers who used to blame farmers have changed their minds as they have grown older and wiser. These researchers have realised that farmers know more than scientists do. This is the social dimension which has to be understood. After observing farmers going around a gorge with their livestock instead of constructing a small bridge, a curious researcher asked the farmers and realised that the main problem related to land tenure. The farmers were worried that investing in a bridge on someone’s piece of land would result in losses should that owner decide to use that land differently. Most roads, dip tanks and water sources suffer from this kind of tragedy of the commons.
Farmers cannot invest if they are not sure who owns the resource. On the other hand, farmers are motivated by money (markets) and this can drive scale and replicability. If households realise that they are being persuaded to work on an irrigation scheme whose main outcome is food security only, they become reluctant to work on it. Commercial production can trigger interest and adaptive capacity particularly if there is a guaranteed market.
Smallholder farmers are moving from cattle to goat production as part of adaptive agriculture.
An example of smallholder farmers
engaging in adaptive practice
Seeing that their environment is being decimated by climate change, some farmers in Nemangwe, Gokwe South district of Zimbabwe have started moving from cattle production to goat production.
“Due to a changing climate, our pastures now comprise mainly bushy veldt and sparse grass which is no longer enough to feed our cattle. As a result, we have decided to keep more goats and fewer cattle. Selling one cow can enable a farmer to buy 10 goats. In addition, where you graze one cow you can graze more than 10 goats. Since they are more of browsers, goats can survive on bushy veldt and tree leaves – something cattle cannot do. Goats can also produce kids twice a year. This means 10 goats can easily multiply to 20 the following season. But if you buy a cow, you will be lucky to get two calves next season. Goats are also very easy to sell without losing the whole herd unlike cattle.
Most of us are slowly moving from cotton to goat production. A goat can give you kids twice before you grow and market cotton,” said Tonderai Mbulawa one of the adaptive farmers in Nemangwe.
To enhance the adaptive capacity of smallholder farmers such as Tonderai, animal scientists can harvest and analyse the quality of community pastures (grasses, tree leaves and water quality, etc,). This can enable farmers to plant appropriate pastures that are more nutritious for their livestock so that they stop depending on crops only. Just as it is important for crop farmers to have their soils analysed through soil sampling, scientists should analyse pastures so that livestock production ensures better return on investment for livestock farmers.
How far are farmers from getting fertiliser suitable for a changing climate?
In a changing climate, most farmers are not comfortable using fertiliser. By now we should be having fertilizer suitable for a changing climate if our researchers paid attention to our adaptive capacity. A number of farmers often blame fertiliser for failure to harvest anything since a common view is that fertiliser burns crops such as maize. Given the long history of Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector, by now we should have developed more than 30 different types of fertiliser for different micro climates and moisture levels. The whole country can’t have one blanket recommendation (Compound D, SSP and AN) as if soils and climatic conditions are the same everywhere.
By now we should have developed fertilisers that are applied once in three or four years rather than encouraging farmers to feed the soil with the same if not more quantities of fertiliser every year. For some farmers, cattle manure and anthill soil mixed with leaves together with cattle manure are applied once in three years and this represents their adaptive capacity.
The yield can be seen decreasing annually from the first year of application and farmers can actually see the effect. This is unlike fertiliser which is applied every season with no marked increase in yield.
Knowledge mobilisation for adaptive capacity
While formal knowledge systems have existed in Zimbabwe for more than a century, there is still limited appreciation of ways in which multiple forms of knowledge can be incorporated into policy process and local knowledge in diverse communities. Most formal researchers have a shortfall in communication skills that are necessary for effective community development. In addition to failure of different experts to speak one language, as indicated above, experts from different disciplinary backgrounds are often reluctant to engage in knowledge co-production processes that seemingly threaten their disciplinary integrity through challenging their hierarchical approach to evidence.
Charles Dhewa is a proactive knowledge management specialist and chief executive officer of Knowledge Transfer Africa (Pvt) . He can be contacted on: [email protected] ; Mobile: +263 774 430 309 / 772 137 717/ 712 737 430.
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