CHIMANINANIi, Zimbabwe (PAMACC News) - Willard Zano, a smallholder farmer at Chakohwa Block E Irrigation Scheme west of Chimanimani district in Zimbabwe looks at water gushing through an irrigation canal and he smiles.
Zano had every reason to smile as the recently rehabilitated irrigation scheme has brought hope to smallholder farmers in this drought ravaged region.
Experts have linked the severity and frequency of the droughts to climate change. And according to the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage, enhanced water use efficiency holds key to tackling water scarcity and food security issues.
The rehabilitation of Chakohwa Block E Irrigation Scheme began in 2015 and was completed in 2017 as a collaborative effort of the local farmers, international humanitarian organisation, World Vision and various Zimbabwe government departments.
Chakohwa and other areas along the western parts of Chimanimani district are among the most arid areas in Zimbabwe, characterised by low and erratic rainfall, making rainfed agriculture virtually unsustainable. And Chakohwa Irrigation Scheme was developed to enhance crop productivity and address food security and nutrition in the region.
“This irrigation scheme (Chakohwa Block E) has brought hope to us all,” Zano said. “We are now ready to harvest our first crop of Michigan beans”.
Chakohwa Block E Irrigation Scheme constructed with the support of World Vision Zimbabwe has 33 hectares benefiting 165 smallholder farmers.
The current crop of Michigan beans was grown under contract farming with Zimbabwe’s food processing company, Cairns Foods.
Under the contract farming initiative each farmer received 10 kgs of Michigan bean seed from Cairns Foods while World Vision supported the farmers with 100 kgs of Compound D, 12,5kg of Ammonia Nitrate and 200ml of bravo and 200ml of diathought chemicals. The farmers are assured of a ready market for their beans.
Another farmer in the irrigation scheme, Eliah Machianga weighed in, adding that the farmers in the area had never dreamed of growing cash crops, but the scheme had changed the way farmers do their business.
“We used to grow crops like millet and we never dreamed of growing cash crops like beans. The irrigation scheme has changed everything. We are expecting to grow tomatoes after harvesting beans,” he said.
Machianga said he would now be able to pay school fees for his children after selling his beans.
“Now I’m no longer worried about how I’m going to get school fees for my children and how I’m going to feed them because this irrigation scheme will bring money to us,” Machianga said.
However, Zano was quick to express fear that with the droughts becoming frequent and severe, the river which supply water for the irrigation would also soon run out of enough water for all the farmers.
“Our best option is to drill boreholes to supply water to the irrigation scheme. Harnessing underground water is the best way to go …we are not sure how long the water in the river will last,” Zano said.
World Vision Zimbabwe operations director, Khumbulani Ndlovu said the irrigation project was developed to assist local farmers and ensure they start to produce and create market linkages.
“The farmers and their children benefit through improved nutrition and household income,” Ndlovu said.
In 2016 and 2017, World Vision Zimbabwe supported other livelihoods projects, including nutrition gardens, micro irrigations schemes and three weirs benefiting more than 600 households in Chimanimani district.
The construction of the weirs was done to harvest water for irrigation in collaboration with the USAID funded Enhancing Nutrition, Stepping up Resilience and Enterprise (ENSURE) grant which was aimed at responding to the El Nino induced drought that affected communities between 2015 and 2016.
And in partnership with the Zimbabwe’s department of Irrigation and the Mhakwe community in Chimanimani, World Vision is developing Shinja Irrigation Scheme Shinja, covering 40 hectares benefiting 150 smallholder farmers.
An engineer with the Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Agriculture, Praisegod Jiji told farmers during the commissioning of Chakohwa Block E Irrigation Scheme that the government with the support of various partners was stepping up efforts to develop irrigation schemes in the country’s dry areas to fight climate change induced food insecurity
“We want to turn all dry areas into wet areas through irrigation development,” Jiji said.
Chimanimani acting district administrator, Lloyd Kasima said he was happy with the support the government was getting from World Vision Zimbabwe to develop irrigation projects in the district.
Kasima, said the irrigation scheme should be fully utilised to enhance food security in the area.
“This is your project (irrigation scheme) and you must fully utilise it and jealously guard it,” Kasima told the farmers.
ACCRA, Ghana (PAMACC News) - Hundreds of illegally imported mattresses confiscated by Ghana’s customs authority were recently burnt openly at a landfill site.
The destruction of the impounded goods is in line with laws prohibiting the entry of used mattresses into the country.
It is common place to see thousands of cartons of cigarette, canned food, drugs, wax prints and other restricted or unwholesome goods burnt openly.
Environmental concerns have however been raised about the practice of burning such materials, due to the gases emitted into the atmosphere.
Kwaku Abeeku, who manages Green Energy and Logistics Consults, says Ghana as a signatory to various international agreements on climate change, including the Paris Agreement, must reconsider alternatives to the burning of impounded goods as soon as possible.
“In the case of these open burns, aside the issue of Carbon Monoxide, these imported mattresses are mainly synthetic foams containing petroleum based chemicals and sometimes even fire retardants,” he observed. “Aside emissions, people living in the immediate environments of these burn sites and the country at large are put in a rather bad situation as we commit to global moves in combating climate change”.
Ghana, in its international obligations as a Party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is guided by its own commitments in the nationally determined contribution (NDC) to climate change mitigation.
As an obligation at the multilateral level, Ghana reaffirms its resolve to support global efforts to define a common future that seeks to safeguard the collective interest of all nations by supporting the 2015 Paris global agreement on climate change.
The implementation of climate actions is expected to help attain low carbon climate resilience through effective adaptation and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction.
In 2017, Ghana at the UN Conference of Parties (COP23) in Bonn, Germany, pledged the country’s commitment to help combat climate change and adapt to its effects.
The destruction of contraband mattresses, clothing, food and pharmaceutical products through open burning is therefore regarded as negating the country’s commitment to climate mitigation.
Kwaku Abeeku has challenged the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) and other institutions responsible for best environmental practices to help halt the open burning of materials.
“I believe the time to make climate and environmental concern a culture and environmental responsiveness a mandatorily measured policy is now,” he said.
ACCRA, Ghana (PAMACC News) - Hundreds of illegally imported mattresses confiscated by Ghana’s customs authority were recently burnt openly at a landfill site.
The destruction of the impounded goods is in line with laws prohibiting the entry of used mattresses into the country.
It is common place to see thousands of cartons of cigarette, canned food, drugs, wax prints and other restricted or unwholesome goods burnt openly.
Environmental concerns have however been raised about the practice of burning such materials, due to the gases emitted into the atmosphere.
Kwaku Abeeku, who manages Green Energy and Logistics Consults, says Ghana as a signatory to various international agreements on climate change, including the Paris Agreement, must reconsider alternatives to the burning of impounded goods as soon as possible.
“In the case of these open burns, aside the issue of Carbon Monoxide, these imported mattresses are mainly synthetic foams containing petroleum based chemicals and sometimes even fire retardants,” he observed. “Aside emissions, people living in the immediate environments of these burn sites and the country at large are put in a rather bad situation as we commit to global moves in combating climate change”.
Ghana, in its international obligations as a Party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is guided by its own commitments in the nationally determined contribution (NDC) to climate change mitigation.
As an obligation at the multilateral level, Ghana reaffirms its resolve to support global efforts to define a common future that seeks to safeguard the collective interest of all nations by supporting the 2015 Paris global agreement on climate change.
The implementation of climate actions is expected to help attain low carbon climate resilience through effective adaptation and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction.
In 2017, Ghana at the UN Conference of Parties (COP23) in Bonn, Germany, pledged the country’s commitment to help combat climate change and adapt to its effects.
The destruction of contraband mattresses, clothing, food and pharmaceutical products through open burning is therefore regarded as negating the country’s commitment to climate mitigation.
Kwaku Abeeku has challenged the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) and other institutions responsible for best environmental practices to help halt the open burning of materials.
“I believe the time to make climate and environmental concern a culture and environmental responsiveness a mandatorily measured policy is now,” he said.
ASHANTI, Ghana (PAMACC News) - Timeabu, a farming community in the Ashanti region of Ghana, has in the past experienced levels of devastation of cocoa trees as a result of bad weather and poor rainfall with adverse impact on production.
To protect dying cocoa trees and the local ecology, the Centre for Climate Change and Food Security (CCCFS), a Ghanaian-based non-governmental organization, has adopted the community to pilot a tree planting program.
Since December 2017, the Centre has planted 200 trees on cocoa farms and other areas of the community, in addition to sensitization on best farming practices.
A beneficiary, Nana Dasebere Boama Darko, says the farmers are excited the trees will relieve them of severe weather condition and help provide the needed shade to nourish their crops.
The Centre plans to extend the exercise to other communities across the country.
“Protecting the ecology is very important. We are likely to live a shameful life if trees continue to die everyday,” said Mahmud Mohammed-Nurudeen, Executive Director of CCCFS. “Planting of the trees is also to sequester carbon, and help remove carbon dioxide from the air, which cools the earth.”
Despite their importance to life, humans have cut down half of the world's trees.
“Every year we cut down over 50,000 square miles of forest worldwide for paper, agriculture, building materials and fuel,” observed Mohammed-Nurudeen.
Several research have proven that carbon release from deforestation accounts for 25 to 30 percent of the four to five billion tons of carbon accumulating every year in the atmosphere from human activities.
Ghana Bureau Chief of ClimateReporters, Kofi Adu Domfeh, who is among lead supporters of the tree planting exercise, emphasized the need to put the trees back “any way we can, as fast as we can”.
“What you may not know is that trees also build soil and offer energy-saving shade that reduces global warming,” he said. “We want to create habitat for thousands of different species and also help to reduce ozone levels.”
The initiative is also supported by the Economy for the Common Good and senior officers of the Ghana Cocoa Board, Fuad Mohammed and Asante Abednago, who have committed to the community outreach to help rural farmers contribute to the government's target of producing one million tonnes of cocoa.
The CCCFS aims to provide enabling environment for all species, make issues of food security relevant and tackle climate change head-on to make Ghana a better place to live.
