Maravi

(HERALD) Age not an obstacle for successful urban farmer

Age not an obstacle for successful urban farmer
Sunday, 24 April 2011 20:46
By Shingirai Huni

THE plot stands proudly in the April sunshine flaunting the brown heads of rapoko nodding to the steady wind.

Adjacent to the rapoko is a maize crop whose cobs point to the sky like huge cursing fingers and then there is an assortment of pumpkins that scatter like dead objects just dropped from the sky.

An array of ridges crack and push the soil apart as evidence of sweet potatoes that lie underneath awaiting eventual harvest.

The plot is well managed under systematic crop rotation that could easily make many a farmer green with envy.

This is naked evidence that widowed Mbuya Cecilia Taruvinga-Nyandoro (70) of Marimba Park in Harare does not have her advancing age, which proverbially comes with wisdom, as the only reason to celebrate.

Over the years she has become adept in growing rapoko, pumpkins, maize, groundnuts, onion and mango fruits at her two-acre plot. This year she is set for yet another bumper harvest.

While many urban and peri-urban farmers have opted for maize for subsistance, Mbuya Nyandoro, as she is affectionately known, grows the small grain using conservation farming method.

"I have been doing this for the last 26 years.
"Conservation farming has enabled me and my family to have bumper harvests every year and ensured food security.

"I use organic manure from a compost that I make after each harvest and I put the stalks of the harvested crop underground. The compost is 3 x 100 metres and it is from it that I get manure for the crop," she said.

Mbuya Nyandoro says she got the farming skills from her late husband who was given a Master of Tillage certificate in 1950.

She boasts that the knowledge she has acquired over the years of experience, trumps any that can be given by conventional extension workers.

"Extension officers are not doing enough to disseminate knowledge to our farmers," she said.

Mbuya Nyandoro said she is passionate about farming and that it is her wish to be given a bigger space of land to fully express her talent.

She said people must fully appreciate the efforts pursued by President Mugabe to fully utilise our land.

"I appeal to Government for a bigger land because my yard is getting smaller for my yields. I want to showcase my capabilities at a larger scale," she said.

She also called on people to heed the call by President Mugabe to till the land and ensure food security.

"People should emulate the efforts of our President and put this land to use, whether at home or at a farm," she said.

Her son George Nyandoro testifies to the farming astuteness of his mother.

He said the by growing rapoko and pumpkins his mother was heeding calls by vice President Joice Mujuru's to grow small grains which are drought resistant.

"This year my mother took heed to the calls of the Vice President (Joice Mujuru) to grow rapoko and pumpkins as they are drought resistant and it paid dividends.
"She is expecting a bumper harvest from her rapoko, maize, pumpkins and sweet potatoes," he said.

Mbuya Nyandoro sells the produce to surrounding areas.

Labels: URBAN FARMING

posted by MrK @ 2:35 PM