Education 5.0: GZU tames poverty, hunger

George Maponga, Masvingo Bureau

GREAT Zimbabwe University (GZU) has launched a cocktail of programmes at its International Research Centre for Drylands Agriculture (ICEDA) in arid Chivi to socio-economically transform the livelihoods of a lot of farmers across the country.

Within its own limited precincts where it works directly to create and refine programmes, the research centre already works with at least 10 000 people.

ICEDA, domiciled in the Gary Magadzire School of Agriculture and Engineering, is one of the university’s flagship programmes that speaks to the operationalisation of Education 5.0 as the Masvingo-based university takes up President Mnangagwa’s challenge to provide solutions for communities in line with the Nyika Inovakwa Nevene Vayo concept.

The fledgling centre in the Madyangove rural heartland in Chivi near Mhandamabwe business centre is pivoting the arid district and its citizens towards self-reliance, especially in food production.

Communities in Chivi and the nearby Chirumhanzu district have also started benefiting from the centre’s poultry programme, while plans are at an advanced stage to introduce a thriving bee-keeping business.

The university is taking up the Government’s programme of fish farming for communities in Chivi and surrounding areas to boost community nutrition and rural incomes.

A milling plant, equipped with the latest winnowing and milling technology, is nearing completion at the centre where traditional grains purchased from contracted out-grower farmers will be processed and fed into the market, earning GZU and the farmers a reasonable income.

According to Gary Magadzire School of Agriculture and Engineering executive dean, Dr Xavier Poshiwa, ICEDA seeks to demystify the notion that drylands are hopeless places where nothing can thrive.

ICEDA is already creating jobs for the local population in Chivi, while also pivoting the district towards achieving food security.

“The centre will house research laboratories where genetic transfer and engineering will take place with local researchers and scientists working at the centre to come up with innovations that will be patented. We expect our researchers and scientists to come up with projects that will spawn entrepreneurship under the Centre for Agro-Innovations in Drylands programme.

“We are working with our partners, that is the Government, through the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science, Innovation and Technology Development and others,” he said.

“We want to create business opportunities at the centre and already a milling plant is being set up. We will create business opportunities through coming up with innovative products. We want challenges in drylands to be opportunities so that these areas become centres of innovation and industrialisation. We want to have different products from this centre. Licences, and businesses will come from this centre and eventually we will eradicate poverty. We want our aspirations to be reflected in the different products that will come from this centre. We will also tap into indigenous knowledge systems so that we can tame poverty and food insecurity.’’

The key pillars for ICEDA are the need to create jobs, stem food insecurity and promote a healthy ecosystem.

At ICEDA, GZU is building a chicken abattoir where out-grower farmers supported by the centre will sell their free-range chickens for slaughter.

“We have already started a programme where ICEDA is building fowl runs for stand-out poultry farmers in Chivi and Chirumhanzu and these beneficiaries also get 100 free-range chicks and the initial chick feed. We will follow up with these farmers and buy these chickens when they mature and we pay them US$6 per bird and subtract the cost of the support we would have given them.

“This project has made a very strong impact and is changing lives and this dovetails with President Mnangagwa’s Vision of Nyika Inovakwa Nevene Vayo.’’

Dr Poshiwa emphasised that ICEDA wanted to exploit and harness locally available resources to stimulate socio-economic transformation in fulfillment of the heritage-based Education 5.0 model, noting that the centre will be a one-stop-shop where indigenous resources, with a bearing towards agriculture, will be further researched on to eradicate poverty and ensure food security.

The free-range chicken business rolled out by ICEDA has already earned the university plaudits with villagers praising GZU for coming to their aid and changing their lives.

Ambuya Stella Vuchirai of Gakari Village under Chief Hama in Chirumhanzu heaped praises on the college for the free-range chicken project that she says is now her source of livelihood.

“I am grateful to GZU because they built a fowl run for me and gave me 100 free range chicks and feed to kick start my project. I can now send my grandchildren to school with the money I make from this project because they also buy the chickens from me upon maturing, so my life is now easier in a way that I never imagined,’’ she said.

This was corroborated by Ambuya Theresa Chihosho of Kamura Village in Hama, Chirumhanzu who credited GZU for transforming the lives of ordinary people in her area.

“We never dreamt that one day we would also be able to earn enough money to meet essentials, especially food. Here in Chirumhanzu crops fail every year because of poor rains but because of GZU’s poultry project, I can now earn enough money to buy my food. This is my third year working with GZU in the poultry project and I am thrilled at how my life has changed. The university helped me realise that I can do anything with my hands and am very happy.’’

Traditional grains farmers are also smiling all the way to the bank thanks to GZU’s ICEDA which is buying their produce and paying them cash. Last year the centre bought 236 tonnes of traditional grains from farmers across Masvingo province.

“Once we install our state-of-the-art equipment in the milling plant we will need about 20 000 tonnes of traditional grains a year for processing and value adding into different products, so the scope is there to expand this project and benefit more rural farmers. We have also used local expertise at GZU to fabricate a dehuller for processing traditional grains.’’

GZU Vice Chancellor Professor Rungano Zvobgo said the birth of ICEDA was the crystallisation of the “do it ourselves strategy’’, which is a conception of President Mnangagwa who came up with the Nyika Inovakwa Nevene Vayo notion.

Professor Zvobgo said by rolling out high-impact programmes like ICEDA, GZU was also implementing the “leaving no one and no place behind mantra’’, again a policy of the President.

“GZU was the first institution to create the ‘do it ourselves’ strategy in this country. We were the first to introduce an infrastructure construction programme.

“We inherited a university that had no infrastructure and we established a brick moulding plant and started developing infrastructure on our own, building new campuses all over and this approach (do it ourselves) was born here and it is now being raised elsewhere,” he said.

“We continue to walk the talk of Nyika Inovakwa Nevene Vayo and if we don’t do it ourselves, then who will?’’ said Professor Zvobgo.

The GZU Vice-Chancellor said the university was firmly focused on making sure Zimbabwe is food secure, and that it was the duty of institutions of higher learning to provide solutions to nagging societal challenges and breathe oxygen into the lungs of the national development agenda in line with Vision 2030.