Train Primary Teachers in Conservation Agriculture

Foundations for Farming (FfF) successfully managed to carry out a number of activities in this quarter. They continued to promote sustainable agriculture in communities, training 90 community leaders across three communities in Bulawayo, Thsolotsho and Bindura in Conservation Agriculture (CA) within the last three months. These communities were chosen as they were deemed the most needy in terms of food shortages and overall povery levels. Each community leader successfully completed the training, and went onto impart these lessons and methods to their local communities.

In addition to this work, FfF conducted refresher training in CA for a group of 28 participants across 7 schools (teachers, headmasters, School Development Committee members and extension officers). This helps schools to hone and improve their skills to ensure their crops and gardens are as successful as possible, and enables FfF to train up other teachers. All participants successfully completed this training and Foundations for Farming are pleased that they have been implementing sustainable farming practices in their schools, and teaching these methods to their students, to great success.

FfF also conducted visits to the communities supported by ZET donors’ support this quarter, including 13 schools and an orphanage, to see their progress and provide extra support where needed. These visits were very encouraging. The schools seemed to be working hard to implement sustainable agriculture practices, and students were engaged in the project. Some support was provided by staff to improve certain techniques and supply tools, and we hope with this help the school’s will be flourishing even more next quarter.

All this work together helps communities to develop skills, produce more food and income, and become more resilient to the drastic effects of poverty and climate change across Zimbabwe. This work would not have been possible without your continued support, so ZET and FfF thank you!

Foundations for Farming (FfF) has had a busy start to the year, partnering with two new schools (Yadah College and Nest Literacy Centre) to teach conservation agriculture, climate-smart methods, and agroforestry. So far, the work with these two schools has been intensive. Firstly, FfF ran a four-day initial training conducted in February for three teachers from the two schools, with the intention of equipping them with adequate knowledge and skills to impart both theoretical and practical concepts to the school children. During the training, the teachers learned about the guiding principles of Conservation Agriculture and Agro Forestry and how to implement these in their daily farming activities. They were then fully equipped through capacity-building training to go onto teach these methods in their schools and surrounding communities.

Then, to follow up from this training to ensure that the teachers are implementing and teaching the concepts taught to them to a high quality, the FfF team conducted the first of four technical support visits to the schools. The technical support visits assess the progress of the schools, monitoring the areas which are excelling and providing support for the areas which still need improvement, including the state of the land being farmed and the levels of knowledge amongst students and other teachers. These visits provide teachers with the physical resources they need to implement this work, as well as refresher training, assistance and support to keep each school motivated and on track.

Both the initial training and the technical support visits were successfully implemented and satisfactory results were obtained. Having successfully prepared the land for new farming at both schools, the next round of technical visits will be used to implement composting and fertilising. The aim of this project is to support communities to implement more efficient and climate-resilient farming methods, which will lead to more crops, giving communities more food on the table and an additional source of income. Both schools seem to be doing well, thanks to the support of Foundations for Farming, and well on the way to using these methods in school plots and advocating their use for the wider community.

As always, ZET and Foundations for Farming are grateful for your continued support, supporting communities to change their lives building routes out of poverty.