ISAYA MUTAKI (65), a farmer, lives a few meters from the home he was raised in, in Gwauya village, Zaka. Reminiscing on his early years, Isaya recalls a time when his village and fields received more rainfall, and his family reaped bumper harvests compared to the constant bad seasons they are experiencing now. Inconsistent and low rainfall patterns, a result of climate change, have not been adequate to cater for their crops throughout the farming season. Water sources continue to dry up, forcing his family and livestock to walk long distances to the next water source.

Grazing pastures have been repurposed to make way for housing settlements, while formerly dense forests have been stripped bare of their foliage. “An increase in our population has led our leaders to give young couples space to construct their houses here. This has left us with limited grazing lands, and our livestock are suffering more because of this,” laments Isaya with concern.

Today is a source of worry for Isaya, as he does not know what tomorrow holds for his children and grandchildren if the amount of rainfall continues to drop with each season. Food is not as readily available, and his family do not have excess to sell like before at his parent’s homestead. Access to water for both domestic use and farming is not the only challenge the Mutakis face; the soil in their fields has been used for generations and is now showing signs of being worn out. Moreso, due to the bareness of the land, the topsoil in the fields has been washed away by water, worsening their plight. “The amount of soil erosion has rapidly increased in our village because of our unsustainable farming practices, such as cutting down trees and using the plow more often, which allows the washing away of the topsoil. This is making our soil more infertile, and it is being made worse because the soil has been used time and again for generations.” Facing these challenges, Isaya decided to attend a ward-level training on how to use multiple interventions to increase agriculture production, and these included water harvesting, improving soil conservation and fertility, and increasing biodiversity to enhance moisture retention. “We learned about constructing half-moons, contours on our farms to harvest water and to protect the topsoil, which has nutrients required by our crops so that we could increase our household harvest,” he recalls.

A motivated Isaya says, “I noticed how baren our land is, the quality of the produce we harvest, and took lessons from the men and women from Takunda. I realized that using the information they shared, we have the potential and opportunity to produce diverse food crops, which could solve our hunger problem”. After attending the workshop conducted in neighboring Guvanye village, Isaya shared his thoughts and doubts with the rest of the family, “I was not even sure if this would work for us. We agreed to try this as a household. During a community meeting, we were then chosen to be Lead farmers in our village so that Takunda could also conduct the training in our area,” he narrates with a smile.

The results the farmers have witnessed in their resilience design demonstration plots and the double-dug beds in permagardens are a marvel. The resilience structures incorporate nutrition-sensitive agriculture (NSA) by growing a variety of nutritious crops to enhance dietary diversity. A single household can now obtain cereals, legumes, fruits, and vegetables. Diverse crop production is complemented by small livestock production (chicken and goats), which is key in providing animal-sourced protein and organic manure to feed the crops. The output at this household inspired ward-based Agricultural Advisory and Rural Development Services (ARDAS) staff to start planning toward a field day at the Isaya’s homestead in the coming months. 

The resilience design activities have not only helped them in achieving food security but also in enhancing social cohesion among community members as they are sharing ideas, exchanging notes, and experiences. “The resilience design contours fostered social cohesion in our community as constructing them requires us to work together. We use peer-to-peer monitoring to check the quality of our crops in different resilience designs fields, such as the pumpkins you see in this field. We have group members with good crops planted on top of their contours. Some are even surpassing what you see here,” said Mrs. Mutaki whilst holding a pumpkin on top of a berm in her resilience designs plot. 

The Mutaki household also participates in other Takunda-led interventions, such as the village savings and loans association (VSLA) and Care groups. The family hopes to be a model resilient household in Ward 28. Mrs. Mutaki and Gogo Mutaki (Isaya’s Mother) are members of the cluster’s Elderly women’s groups. They are active and play a crucial role in encouraging other women to join their farmer field business school (FFBS) or resilience design (RD) group. Mrs. Mutaki said, “Our son usually helps us prepare the land and supports us during the farming season. During his last visit at the end of 2022, we sat down as a family and planned for the next season. Thanks to the training we have received under Takunda, we were able to give him enough space to help us plan, to listen to his plans and implement that”. A joyous Mrs. Mutaki added, “Women from neighboring villages have noticed the changes at my homestead. I encourage them to join the Farmer Field Business School (FFBS). Participating in most of Takunda’s interventions has helped to understand the impact of this project at the household level. I am a member of our savings group, where I obtained a loan from VSLA to increase the number of broiler chickens I rear for income generation. The project had slowed down after I encountered financial challenges some time back.”

In his closing remarks, Mr. Mutaki said, “I would like to thank Takunda for helping us with knowledge every time they visit us; I have confidence that our future is bright as a family. We would like hunger and poverty to be a thing of the past in our community. We expect a bumper harvest since we have good maize crops this season”.

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