…As he harnesses lost water for irrigation
Beatific Gumbwanda
CHIREDZI-West Member of Parliament Farai Musikavanhu, an agronomist by profession as well as a sugarcane farmer in Mkwasine at his Puwevhu Enterprises farm is currently doing wonders in mitigating the effects of climate change through adopting the climate smart agriculture.
The initiative motivated him to harness lost irrigation water from nearby farms for irrigational use in his sugarcane farm, where he is currently also subsidizing with other crops including Lucerne, fish farming, maize production, goat production as well as poultry, to mention but a few.
The former Tongaat Hulett Zimbabwe (THZ) Agriculture Director (Musikavanhu) is exhibiting good agronomical practices, utilizing the experience he gained at the sole sugar producer in the country as he is rated as one of the best performing few sugarcane farmers in the country.
The Puwevhu Enterprises boss adopted the climate smart agriculture through his diversified farming, where he sacrificed part of his plot, where sugarcane is the mainstay, to mitigate the effects of climate change by growing the country’s staple food (maize) as well as the most debated ‘Lucerne’ crop which he is using to fatten livestock which he buys from the local communities.
Musikavanhu also said that he is growing Lucerne, which is a source of protein replacing the commonly known cotton and soya cake to fatten steers for resale.
“We are formulating our own feed through sugarcane that drops on the loading zone.
After we heard about Lucerne, we introduced it here to replace the cotton and soya cake as the sole sources of protein to fatten our steers we bought from the neighbouring community,” said Musikavanhu.
Over the past few months, there was an outcry of irrigational water in Mkwasine as there developed a technical fault at Manjirenji Dam, which is the sole source of water for thee estates, where Musikavanhu did not face any challenge as he used the little he get sparingly as well as harnessing lost water from neighbouring estates into his small artificial dams, thereby reducing his irrigational costs from the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA).
“We never faced that challenge here at Puwevhu Enterprises as we have our own motto that losing water is losing life. We are also harnessing lost water from nearby estates for storage which we will later use for irrigation. Masvingo province has 54% of the country’s water storage which we are failing to utilize at full capacity,” he added.
Musikavanhu also articulated that it was not wise to destroy forests to grown nothing as most of the land in Mkwasine is lying idle due to failures by most farmers.
Most farmers are producing between 60-70 tons of sugarcane per hectare which is almost nothing to someone who has turned farming into business and that cannot justify deforestation to farming.
“It’s useless to cut down trees in order to grow nothing. Most farmers are ranging between 60-70 tons per hectare, which is nothing considering the milling charges and inputs you got from Tongaat Hulett. Farmers should operate between 80-100 tons per ha in order to operate with a better profit margin. Here we are currently expecting 120 tons per ha,” added Musikavanhu.
Great Zimbabwe University lecturer Dr Last Alfandika who was part of the entourage on Puwevhu Enterprises highlighted that government’s public relations is failing to market such farming initiatives hence they are not being welcomed by its citizens.
“We are failing to tell out our story as Zimbabwe due to failure of our government’s public relations. We failed to market the Lucerne project in Chilonga because we only thought of the displacements of people but rather not the multinational value and benefits,” said Dr Alfandika.
The legislator is also into fish farming, livestock, goat and poultry production, Lucerne, garlic as well as maize for food security.
