By Bridget Simukai (25)
Instead of being celebrated as heroes, small-scale farmers are shunned. The dominant narrative says farmers are poor, uneducated and incapable of generating decent livelihoods from farming activities. This has pushed young people away from farming.
I grew up without any aspiration of being a farmer but this changed when I got my hands dirty. My name is Bridget Simukai and I am 25 years old. I live in Ngondyore village in Bikita District, located about 80 kilometres east of Masvingo Province.
My journey as a farmer began when I got married. I needed food and income to look after my family. This led me into horticulture. The only farming methods I knew were the conventional methods which rely on the use of external agriculture inputs such as hybrid seeds, synthetic fertilizers, and pesticides. I did not know that synthetic substances were bad for soil health. I did not know that relying on external agricultural inputs would trap me into always buying inputs each time I needed to produce food.
In the early days, farming seemed to produce the results I wanted. The harvest was good but each year I needed more inputs to sustain my yields. This meant using more money to buy fertilizers and seed. But as time moved on, the prices of seed, fertilizers and pesticides increased beyond my reach. After failing to buy the fertilizers, my crop yields dropped drastically, and I was food insecure. I realised that the system of farming I was using was unsustainable.
As I was on the verge of abandoning farming, I was invited to a workshop that was organised by the Schools and Colleges Permaculture Programme (SCOPE) Zimbabwe. The two day workshop was held at Chirumba High School and drew 22 youths from Mukore, Mazungunye, Chirima and Duma villages in Bikita district.
During the training, I learned how to manufacture Bokashi, a potent organic fertilizer that promotes plant growth while improving soil fertility. Bokashi is made cheaply from locally available materials. I also learned about the benefits of diversified farming rather than mono-cropping. SCOPE Zimbabwe also taught me about the benefits of growing indigenous crops such as pearl millet, finger millet and sorghum. I also learned that farming requires minimal soil disturbance so as to reduce erosion.
I want to thank SCOPE Zimbabwe for the support and for helping me to understand sustainable farming. I have already started to implement some of the learnings I got from the workshop. I am also connected to other youth farmers in our district and we are encouraging each other to adopt agroecology.
I encourage other youth to engage in farming as a profession. As I transform my farming methods, I have plans to venture into apiculture, fisheries, piggery as well as rabbit production so as to boost my income.