Zimbabwe’s Shangani tribe defies climate change

By Jeffrey Moyo

CHILONGA, Zimbabwe (AA) - In the midst of a sea of ripe sorghum crops, 63-year-old Clara Matsilele moved with the agility of a teenager as she reaped her crops, helped by her daughters-in-law.

Just last year, Matsilele harvested three tones of sorghum even as Chilonga had minimal rains, yet what has kept many peasants going like Matsilele has been the drought-resistant small grains crops that villagers here have depended on generation after generation.

For Matsilele, the only time they experience hunger is when locusts pounce on their crops.

But many like her (Matsilele) have also made money with their resilience in the face of harsh climate change impacts in this region.

Apparently, Chilonga lies in region five of this Southern African nation's Masvingo Province, where droughts have become a norm over the years, with the area famed for aridity and erratic rainfall patterns.

In fact, many parts of Chilonga, which is a remote area over 40 kilometers South-east of Chiredzi town, have over the decades been certified unfit for agriculture.

But even as that is the case with the area, many villagers like Matsilele of the minority Shangani tribe are outclassing climate change impacts here, making ends meet on one of the driest lands in the country.

"This year alone, I'm aiming to harvest about four tonnes of sorghum, part of which I will sell and use the remainder for my consumption with my family up to the next farming season and beyond," Matsilele told Anadolu Agency.

Like the rest of Zimbabwe's region, five south of the country, Chilonga is famed for receiving very little rain each year.

In the midst of the scarce rains here, the minority Shangani tribe has nevertheless managed to harvest plenty, meaning constant victory on the villagers' part against ongoing droughts that have pounded the region over the years.

Instead of falling victim to the constant droughts here, many Chilonga villagers like 42-year-old Shonani Chauke, a single mother of seven, have turned their misfortune into gold, growing drought-resistant crops like sorghum and millet, which they sell to big Zimbabwean beer-brewing companies like Delta and Chibuku.

As a result, many villagers like Chauke, even as droughts pounce almost every year, their pockets are sure to be fat and their stomachs full as they switch to drought-resistant crops, which they have turned into cash crops as well as their constant staple amidst droughts.

"I have no hunger in my home and nobody starves in my home for as long as we grow sorghum and millet because these crops survive with very little rains, which means guaranteed food and money for my family and me," Chauke told Anadolu Agency.

In fact, several villagers in Chilonga have capitalized on their drought crisis, entering into contract farming with beer-brewing companies like Delta and Chibuku, which buys the sorghum grown by the villagers in the midst of the harshest climate change impacts here.

Delta and Chibuku breweries apparently use small grains crops like sorghum to produce beer and as such, the villagers have turned their own curse into a blessing, meaning the constant droughts for them have become opportunities to earn even better for themselves and their families.

"The resilience against climate change impacts has enabled villagers here to identify opportunities instead of misery for themselves and now even as it rains less and less in Chilonga, drought-resistant crops grown by villagers have more and more become sources of money and food for them" Denis Mangari, a former agricultural extension officer in Zimbabwe's Ministry of Agriculture, told Anadolu Agency.

As villagers in Chilonga outclass growing impacts of climate change, Zimbabwe's climate change activists like Kudakwashe Makanda, who is also the programs manager for the Youth Initiative for Community Development (YICD), a youth civic organization, think cropping should match with climatic conditions where people live and farm.

"There is a need to sensitize local communities to grow crops suiting their local climatic conditions. For instance, there are areas that can only do well with goat farming, which means if certain communities can just aim to rear goats, they can do exceedingly well," Makanda told Anadolu Agency.

Such has been the step taken by many villagers in Chilonga, paying off in the process.

Makanda said 'sometimes issues of starvation happen because people in our communities farm crops that don't suit their local climate.'
But many farmers in Chilonga, like 44-year-old Livson Chikutu, have over the decades learned the ropes and the aridity in Chikutu's area had become something to live with, rather gainfully.

"Our main crops are drought-resistant crops such as red and white sorghum, which do well in less or very little rains. Once there is that little rain, I personally understand I would be going to have a bumper harvest to sustain my family. This year obviously, we are having a bumper harvest although we had problems with locusts that descended on some of our fields," Chikutu told Anadolu Agency.

Happison Chikova, a climate change expert who holds a degree in Environmental Studies from the Midlands State University in Zimbabwe, said there is more being done by communities surmounting climate change impacts in Zimbabwe.

"Those people in Chilonga are not going to be pounded by climate change impacts for they are resilient, meaning in their case they grow millet, sorghum, traditional crops which are drought-resistant and not easily affected by water stress, meaning at the end of each harvest they have enough to eat and extra to sell," Chikova told Anadolu Agency.

Apart from reaping the rewards of growing drought-tolerant crops like sorghum and millet, Chikova also said rearing 'mixed breed of cattle which are commercially viable' has helped Chilonga villagers to smile all the way to the bank even amid incessant droughts.

But to Chikova, 'each area has its own solutions to climate change.'
"In Mutare, for instance, there is something different that people do to fend off climate change impacts. In Chilonga or Mwenezi, there are also ways people have adopted in order to defeat climate change impacts," said Chikova.

But even as villagers in Zimbabwe's remote areas like Chilonga are beating climate change impacts, more still needs to be done, according to climate change experts like Godfrey Sibanda.

"I think the use of underground water could be a solution. Therefore, borehole drilling with pumps powered by solar technology will provide water for horticulture even in the driest of places," Sibanda told Anadolu Agency, this getting buy-in from top government climate change leaders like Washington Zhakata.

"Irrigation is one of the most effective adaptation strategies in those areas (Chilonga). Water harvesting techniques need to be implemented to ensure water availability. Pan feeding of livestock can generate alternative sources of income to cushion the communities frequently affected by droughts," Zhakata, who is Zimbabwe's director of Climate Change Management in the Ministry of Environment, told Anadolu Agency.

Of Chilonga, Sibanda said, "this is a hot area where solar technology can do wonders."

"Solar technology can power some other business activities which can generate revenue besides water for irrigation," added Sibanda.