NDAMU SANDU
Zimbabwe has been chosen alongside three other countries in East and Southern Africa under a programme meant to transition farmers from maize-mixed systems to sustainably intensified, diversified, and de-risked agrifood systems.
Other countries to be involved are Zambia, Kenya and Ethiopia.
The programme, Ukama Ustawi, is run by the CGIAR and meant to help millions of vulnerable smallholders in 12 countries in East and Southern Africa intensify, diversify and de-risk maize-mixed farming through improved extension services, institutional capacity strengthening, targeted farm management bundles, policy support, enterprise development and private investment.
“Zimbabwe is one of the anchor countries that we are working with. We are working in 12 countries but there is a concentration in four of them—Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Ethiopia. In Zimbabwe we are doing work around how do we diversify the maize mixed system and sustainably intensify them,” said Inga Jacobs-Mata, International Water Management Institute regional representative for Southern Africa.
She said the East and Southern region, Zimbabwe included, is very much dominant on the maize crop which is vulnerable to climate change, poorly managed and does not lead to the “nutritional diets that we have in the region”.
“So we have high rate of malnutrition in this region. So this project is saying how can we diversify this maize system to other crops, more nutritious diets but there is also know that we can’t move completely away from maize. So we want to sustainably intensify through more on less, that is, through mechanisation, help farmers access to tractors and other farming equipment to make the farming process easier,” Jacobs-Mata said.
The Ukama Ustawi programme has a strong focus on agribusiness: how do to support the agribusiness ecosystem.
“We are working with agribusiness through accelerated programmes, through incubation, technical assistance to either help farmers commercialise or help businesses scale these innovations,” she said.
The programme also focuses digital agro advisory with a target to reach 1m farmers by the end of 2024.
“It’s [Ukama Ustawi] a 3-year project subject to continuation up to 2030. By 2024 we want to have reached 1m farmers who would have access to digital agro-advisory. These are things like early warning systems, seasonal forecast, anything that helps informing farming practices,” Jacobs-Mata said.
She said the team is identifying the sites for the work that “we will do in Zimbabwe for sustainable intensification and diversification”.
“There are a few sites, focus around Masvingo, Bindura, among others. We are working with private sector partners, service providers of equipment like tractors,” Jacobs-Mata said. The second phase of the Ukama Ustawi will cover Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. The last phase covers eSwatini, Madagascar, Mozambique and South Africa.
