Train Primary Teachers in Conservation Agriculture

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.

In October and November, Foundations for Farming conducted two technical support visits to five schools.

The purpose of the visit was:

• to distribute inputs for them to use for planting and watering their plots, including hoes, watering cans, maize seed, fertilizer and vegetable seed. The schools could then use these for food and income production
• to assess the schools progress and sustainability, identifying how many students and communities had been taught sustainable farming methods and evaluating the success of the project, as this would be Foundations for Farming’s final visit to each of these schools

This was vital as many of the schools had the knowledge of conservation and climate-smart agriculture techniques, thanks to training by Foundations for Farming, but lacked the necessary tools. It was clear this knowledge had been successfully passed down from the teachers to the students, and giving hope that these students can go out to transfer these skills to the rest of the community.

Across the schools ZET and Foundations for Farming have been working in, a total of 17 staff, 338 pupils and 87 community members have been trained in conservation agriculture, learning the most effective, sustainable and resilient farming methods for their land.

The schools had successfully taken on the methods and message advocated by Foundations for Farming, but some struggled with certain activities, including mulching, weeding or composting due to a shortage of time or resources. 

These visits gave the Foundations for Farming a clearer picture of how the schools would perform long after the program ended. All the schools showed a lot of promise but there is still need for continuous encouragement required to motivate the teachers.

Of all the schools, St Johns was the best performing school with more enthusiastic pupils than the rest of the schools. St John’s benefitted from a strong relationship with Foundations for Farming, and was visited often for training, tools and support. This shows the importance of building long-lasting intensive relationships, and having enough staff and funds to implement the project successfully.

In 2017, Foundations for Farming intends to renew this work by partnering with new schools and continuing its training in efficient farming methods to provide communities with more opportunities for food and income production. Two new schools have already been identified thanks to ZET's funding, but we will need help to reach more communities across Zimbabwe, as they struggle to cope with the continued effects of poverty and climate change.