Rampant degradation of ecosystems is eroding the adaptive capacity of local communities all across Zimbabwe. This is making it difficult for smallholder farmers to survive.
Eusebia Dhliwayo (59), a smallholder farmer working with Chinyika Community Development Trust in Gutu district says poor landscape management makes her community highly vulnerable to climate hazards. Eusebia and her community in Chinyika are now practicing holistic land and livestock management to resuscitate depleted landscapes.
“Before we adopted holistic land and livestock management, our community faced unending hunger. We were experiencing frequent droughts and poor farming practices were causing land depletion,” says Eusebia.
Eusebia says she and other smallholder farmers from her community have decided to act in order to preserve the ecosystem and give future generations a fighting chance against climate change.
With training from the Africa Centre for Holistic Management (ACHM), Eusebia and other farmers are practicing holistic planned grazing and animal impacting of crop fields. “With these techniques, we have improved soil fertility and ground cover” says Eusebia.
Charity Kwenzani (48), an agricultural extension officer who has been working directly with the Chinyika Community Development Trust and the smallholder farmers in Chinyika says positive changes can be easily seen in communities which have adopted the initiative.
“Through planned grazing we have observed an increase in ground cover. Some water bodies that had dried up are slowly coming back to life and gullies have been reclaimed,” she says.
Elias Ncube (65), Training Manager at the Africa Centre for Holistic Management says ground cover is important because it helps in climate mitigation through sequestering of carbon.
“When plants grow they capture carbon in the atmosphere and store it underground. Bare soils release carbon into the atmosphere and this adds to the Greenhouse Gases in the atmosphere,” explains Elias.
Paul Muchineripi (PhD) (74), is the founding Director of Chinyika Community Development Trust. He says healthy landscapes are key in climate mitigation and adaptation.
“Climate change has undermined previously productive ecosystems as in the case of Gutu district before interventions of holistic land and livestock management,” says Paul.
Paul says the landscape regeneration work has birthed other climate change adaptation efforts.
“Seed production and saving of traditional varieties like finger millet has been revived in the Chinyika community. The production of traditional crops is much easier because the soil is more fertile,” he says.
For smallholder farmers like Eusebia, holistic land and livestock management is aiding them to curb hunger and become food sufficient.
“I have fully adopted holistic planned grazing and animal impacting of crop fields and I’m working with 21 families in my ward. We used to be hesitant but after seeing the benefits of holistic land and livestock management, we are convinced that we need more farmers to join us so that we heal our land and fight climate change,” she says.
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