Train Primary Teachers in Conservation Agriculture

Foundations for Farming have had an exciting quarter, expanding their work both in Zimbabwe and wider Africa. Foundations for Farming ran training courses on conservation, climate-smart agriculture, agroforestry and farming principles and methods for community leaders from every region of Zimbabwe last quarter. Foundations for Farming identified that poor farming methods and an overdependency on cash crops have led to food insecurity and poverty in local communities, where even farmer’s families do not have enough food on the table or money to pay for education or healthcare. As a result, they ran an intervention training teaching community leaders and farmers in better water conservation, land use and time management to produce more crops and more income.

There was also a specialist training for a group of refugees to learn farming methods, so they are not reliant on refugee camps and hand outs but could provide food security and income opportunities for themselves. All the training was extremely successful, and feedback after the sessions revealed that all participants were extremely passionate about the training and had retained the information well.

ZET was lucky enough to visit Foundations for Farming and one of the schools we have worked with since 2018 this quarter to see the incredible progress they have made. We were extremely impressed with the Foundations for Farming office, which is surrounded with test plots and nutritional gardens so they can practice and enhance their teachings and projects. The gardens and plots were blooming and it was almost impossible to believe that such simple farming methods and changes could have such a drastic change on outputs.

We also visited St John’s Primary School, the school we have been supporting through GlobalGiving for 3 years. The school is thriving, having successfully implemented and maintained the Foundations for Farming approaches. This has meant they have produced enough maize and vegetables to set up a Food Aid programme, giving free school meals to disadvantaged students, and even surplus on top to sell at local markets to have more money for books and school resources. It was a pleasure to see how the project had worked so successfully, not only to improve farming and food production, but to benefit the whole school and community.

Thank you for all your continued support!