THE China Aid agricultural experts have launched a new agricultural demonstration centre in Zindi village, Shamva, aimed at equipping smallholder farmers with skills in crop and manure production.
The centre also aims to equip farmers with skills to use agricultural machinery specifically designed for small-scale farming.
A team of Chinese agricultural experts from China Aid, led by Zhao Ke, commenced conducting a two-day training session on Friday last week.
The training covered citrus and crop production, animal feed and the use of advanced agricultural machinery from China.
“This project is good and impactful to the community as it will uplift the standard of living of this community especially here in Zindi village,” Shamva district agriculture extension officer Lovemore Kahari said.
“The coming in of foreigners in the country can help to bring new technologies and innovation which are then used by our people to develop and expand the land under tillage.
“For example, in Pfumvudza, if they use machinery, it means expansion, which will improve productivity, hence they can sell the surplus.”
China Aid horticultural expert Zhou Shiwei said they wanted to establish a model that could help to improve food security by implementing measures that are environmentally friendly as well as positively impacting people and livestock.
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“We were allocated this village in March by the government of Zimbabwe after travelling to all provinces and here we are providing technical support. If this is successful, it will be applied by other villages as well,” Zhou said.
“We are trying to implement this model with two approaches such as food security for people and to generate money for the community. If this project is successful it can improve food security in the country.
“We are teaching small-scale farmers to be productive; we train them how to make feed and fodder for their livestock and how to make fertiliser and how to use effective machinery too.
“We have two demonstration centres in Zvimba and in Shamva. We will drill boreholes to provide water and we have introduced a system whereby the villagers are given these machines to use and after a year they rent it at presumably the price of a dollar so that we maintain the machines.”
The initiative marks the second demonstration centre established by the China Aid agricultural experts in Zimbabwe.
The first centre, located in Murombedzi, Zvimba, focuses on supporting farmers in rabbit and indigenous chicken production.
Since its establishment in 2019, the Murombedzi centre has seen significant progress, with local firm Raymeg Consultants Private Limited recently partnering China Aid to provide farmers in Zvimba with purebred rabbit stock.
