Zimbabwean Farmers Bag the Clouds

Water harvesting has enabled women to grow vegetables in their backyards

The method is simple. It involves digging pits that are one meter deep and a meter wide.

How is the Water Harvested?

Basically, the pits fill up from rainfall and retain the water, which soaks slowly into the ground depending on the soil type. The water also drains slowly from the water harvesting pits as the low-lying parts of the crop field run out of moisture.

Mr. Osmond Mugweni, a Sustainable Agriculture Consultant with the UNDP Africa 2000 Plus Network is proud of this technique, which he believes can solve the country's drought-threatened food security if promoted nationally. He said water harvesting filtration pits "help to raise water tables" due to the water harvesting pits' water retention capacities. The capillary activity draws water from the water table to the surface.

"This has a double effect," said Mr. Mugweni. "The wet conditions are good for the crops and also promote the growth of a variety of grass species and herbs, enhancing conservation."

The Anti-Water Harvest Police

UNDP Africa 2000 Plus Network officer, Osmond Mugweni shows how water harvesting can help retain moisture

The subsistence Zimbabwean farmer, Zephaniah Phiri, introduced this method to Zimbabwe in the late 1960s; and as happens with all new things, the authorities in colonial Zimbabwe arrested him for introducing a method the success of which they doubted. But the arrest did not stop Phiri from continuing to implement the method on his small rural farm in Zvishavane. Today, Phiri, now in his late 70s, is emerging as the hero that he was when he first introduced this method. Phiri has proved wrong people who doubted the effectiveness of this method, because it promotes food security. It also generates more income for farmers from sales of a variety of crops that they can now harvest throughout the year from the same piece of land, resulting in a better standard of living.

Mrs. Khetiwe Mhlanga, UNDP Africa 2000 Plus Network Coordinator said, "We have known about Mr. Phiri's work for years. Mr. Phiri also read about the UNDP Africa 2000 Plus Network's work and wrote to us. That's how we came to know him."

Commenting on why Zimbabwe's Agricultural Extension Services was not using Mr. Phiri's water harvesting method as a solution to fight drought and promote greater yield from agricultural products countrywide, Mrs. Mhlanga said, "The Agricultural Extension Services, like most governments, don't learn from common people. Even in Japan at the World Water Forum, government people didn't go see work done by NGOs and community representatives."

However, Mrs. Mhlanga said the water harvesting method is spreading steadily on small-scale farms in Zimbabwe, but using a method that is slightly different from that of Phiri, who has been harvesting water on sloppy land.

Meanwhile, most SHAFAC members who have implemented the water harvesting method on their small scale commercial farms said in separate interviews that five years from now they see themselves owning sophisticated farming equipment, including tractors, due to revenue generated from the water harvesting method-fed agricultural produce.

Through the use of this method, the SHAFAC small-scale commercial farmers await another bumper harvest this year. The UNDP Africa 2000 Plus Network Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme (GEFSP) assisted the farmers to establish the water harvesting method in the year 2000. Funded by Hilswerk, Austria, the ABC+Water Project is aimed at restoring the people's livelihoods in the Shagashe farming area, through ecologically sustainable agriculture.

While the water harvesting technology has helped SHAFAC to beat the negative impacts of drought, large and small scale commercial farmers and subsistence farmers in Zimbabwe have once again succumbed to another drought this year, leaving the country with inadequate food supplies. Sadly, the method that could provide answers to Zimbabwe's food security problems in dry regions and in times of drought has taken time to take off the ground. The UNDP Africa 2000 Plus Network is working towards promoting the use of this technology throughout Zimbabwe and globally.

The UNDP Africa 2000 Plus Network showcased this technology through photographic posters at the World Water Forum in Kyoto, Japan last March to benefit countries whose food supplies continue to lessen as long as the drought persists.

Mrs. Mhlanga said the response to their water harvesting campaign in Kyoto is yet to come. She also presented a paper on capacity building at the World Water Forum.

The Installation Process

To install this method on one's farm, all one needs to do is to dig filtration pits not more than a meter deep and a meter wide and the length can be as long as 1-30 meters at the top of the field so that the harvested rain water can filter through into the fields with crops. SHAFAC farmers say the installation of the water harvesting technology is very cheap.

When it rains, the water harvesting filtration pits hold the water and prevent run-off. The water harvesting filtration pits give the rainwater good contact time with the soil and allow it to sink into the soil and not to be lost as run-off. An added advantage of this method is that it also minimizes soil erosion, thereby promoting sustainable agriculture. The water harvesting filtration pits raise the water table because they allow water to filter into the soil. When the water table is rising, it also initiates some capillary action, drawing moisture from deep down underground to come to the surface. "This is a double cumulative effect that is very good for the environment," said Mr. Mugweni. "The wet conditions result in grass and many plant species growing lavishly on the farm, serving as a good conservation measure. In wetland areas you get a lot of the water-loving plants coming in the area, in addition to animals and insects."

Zimbabwean Farmers Optimistic About Food Security

A rich maize crop on a farm where water-harvesting technology has been installed

Mr. Mugweni says this method serves as a food security measure in drier parts and even in the wetter parts of Zimbabwe in times of drought. Before the introduction of the water harvesting method in the Shagashi farming area, farmers used to struggle to produce just one crop in one season, but they can now produce more than one crop in one season on the same piece of land. In summer they grow maize and in winter they grow wheat, using the moisture retained by the water harvesting filtration pits. The water harvesting ponds can also be used for fish farming. This allows for diversification in farming, thereby creating food security.

Mr. Mugweni said the water harvesting filtration pits help reduce soil erosion by preventing surface run-off, since they hold water and make it sink into the ground. Farmers are also able to get increased soil depth because they are not eroding the soil. They will also continue farming on the same pieces of land. As long as they do not cause soil erosion they will not need to abandon their pieces of land in the future in search for virgin land that is difficult to find, due to continued population growth.

The problem in Zimbabwe is not that of total rainfall failure. "Our problem is the distribution of rainfall. In most dry parts of Zimbabwe, all the rainfall for the season can come in just one or two months and it is not spread across the whole rainfall season," said Mugweni. In such areas, if you have water harvesting structures like those being done here in Shagashi, you harness all that moisture and that time and then you spread it over the next four to five months and that's how it enhances the productivity in these semi-arid environments. In the process, it promotes food security in dry parts of the country and even in wetter parts at times of drought. "Most of the crops grown in Zimbabwe need 90 to 160 days to fully mature. So if you have the rains coming in less than one month, the crops cannot mature at all," explained Mugweni. "But if you spread that moisture and use it for the next three to four months, you will be able to harvest crops."

What the water harvesting method has demonstrated is that farmers can have fertilizers, insecticides and herbicides, but without adequate water they cannot get a good harvest. This is a good demonstration of how an indigenous knowledge system compliments modern methods of agriculture. Also, because the area is generally dry, agronomists discouraged farmers in the Shagashe from drilling boreholes, as this would lead to the creation of a desert. But through the water retention capacity of the water harvesting method on their farms, they have now created wet environments. Because of this, farmers in this area are now being allowed to drill boreholes on their farms.

The wet environments are helping revive wetlands, promoting rapid growth of grass, trees and even attracting wildlife onto their farms. Although wildlife destroys farmers' crops, its attraction to the wet environments demonstrates that apart from promoting food security, water harvesting also promotes biodiversity conservation.

Emmanuel Koro is an environment and development communication specialist based in Zimbabwe. He is also President of the sub-Saharan Africa Forum for Environment Communicators (SAFE) which aims to promote the conservation and development views and interests of rural communities in the media. Your emails will be forwarded to him by contacting the editor at: ScienceTech@iolteam.com.