Sustainable Development Perspectives

Resource efficient and portable small scale rural brooder heating system This week has been a great week for Zimbabwe’s Sunshine City, Harare. Despite the fairly cold mornings lately, this week we have been warming up ourselves with some “hot” ideas at the Research and Intellectual Expo (RIE) currently underway at the University of Zimbabwe. The RIE is an initiative of Zimbabwe's Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education that seeks to showcase the various innovations taking place in the country's universities and colleges. I decided to dedicate most of my time strolling through the exhibition stalls, sniffing around for some agricultural innovations, especially those that do not kill the “ golden egg goose .” My search today was quite successful as I made a stop at the Midlands University stand and met one inventor showcasing what he calls the “portable brooder heating system.” The witty inventor, Mr Chiwishi, shows off some happy chicks in his portable small s...

The Climate Smart Journey Has Just Begun... I have been doing some research on Climate Smart Agriculture and the youth and I thought I should just share a few "power" points today on "why the world needs more climate smarts", like you and me. I have called them the "60 percent" game changers and the "golden egg goose." The "60 percent" game changers "As the world needs to feed more mouths, it needs to create more jobs; this convergence of events is making agriculture not only an option for youth employment and entrepreneurship, but a very viable one" In my research I bumped into three 60 percent statistics that point to possible game changers for the youth in developing countries. I have summarized them in the phrase above and I call them the three "60 percent" game changers. Food demand growing by 60 percent Picture by Mabel Hungwe First, it is estimated that agricultural production will ha...

The Climate Smart Challenge We have all heard by now that global food demand is increasing and that food consumption worldwide is expected to increase in 2018 by nearly 30 per cent over 2005 figures! This is driven to a great extent by a growing middle class in emerging markets fueling an increased demand for non-staple crops such as cashews, tree nuts, chocolate, and coffee.  This trend also comes on the backdrop of complexly changing climatic conditions  evidenced  by increasing floods, deforestation, and soil erosion which has had a disproportionate effect on agriculture, especially in developing countries because of their high dependence on agriculture. In some cases these effects have been catastrophic. You should be thinking climate smart by now In the face of an increasingly hungry population ( an estimated 870 million people, one in eight of the world’s population, were undernourished in 2010–2012) and a rapidly transforming transforming ...

The Story of Kiambaa Rural Dairy Cooperative The Fin4ag International Conference held in Nairobi from the 14th to the 18th of July 2014 set in motion a number of evolutionary processes, especially among young people whose impact on agriculture in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific is going to be revolutionary. A recent news article by the main organizers of the conference, the Technical Center for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) supports this.  As a young African agriculture enthusiast, one of my encounters with destiny at the Fin4ag conference was during the field trips when we visited Kiambaa Rural Dairy Cooperative and met two happy couples that are living "dairy ever after" in rural Kenya, Mr and Mrs Nyaka and Mr and Mrs Njeka.  The two couples shared their life stories and how dairy farming through the network of a Savings and Credit Cooperative (SACCO) is impacting positively on their families and communities. I was astonished by how these hum...

https://www.dropbox.com/sc/qpgos1790b1wyjn/AAAeHNjs2_VRSak38xAZ0uXha

"Lack of gratitude is as the sin of witchcraft" -  (My Translation of a common Shona Proverb) Sometime back I asked for your support in the YoBloCo , Young Agriculture Blogger Competition.  I would really like to thank all those who voted for this blog, and all those who found time just to look at my blog and read the posts. I know time is expensive for you all to make detailed comments on each posts, BUT I also know that you read my blog, because the number of views has kept on increasing to over a 1,500 views now! I am very pleased to share with you that even though the Barefoot E-ssue did not make it into the top 12 Blogs, we sure did get a special mention from CTA! Check out the News item here !  In the same regard, I would also like to extend my warm gratitude to the Technical Center for Agricultural  and Rural Cooperation ( CTA ) for organizing the Web 2.0 Training that introduced me to blogging and birthed the Barefoot E-ssue. By the way, I sta...

Sustainable Food Future = grow more food (with less resources)   + grow more people who love to grow more food (in a more sustainable way) I am quite happy to be communicating with the world again after a significant period of silence. Things have been a bit hectic but pretty exciting. I have had the privilege of joining a group of representatives from one my country's largest farmer representative body (you can check 'em out here ) in visiting their farmers  around the country. Young people are the dominant drivers of African agri-food markets transformation- Picture by Mabel Hungwe  The most intriguing aspect of the visits I was privileged to join, is the evidence of young innovative and resilient agro-preneurs that are emerging across the African rural and rural-urban food markets landscape. From the far country side to the budding rural towns, ant-army like busy groups of young agriculture entrepreneurs are producing and moving food in a manner we hav...

Picture of Zimbabwean children working in a field by Mabel Hungwe Trustee, Barefoot Education for Afrika Trust One third of the world's people depend on small farms for their livelihoods. This is a key development statistic. Inclusive smallholder agriculture driven growth should be a central part of our development priorities. Africa has experienced trends of impressive economic growth, improved governance and improved human development over the past decade.  However, the pace and pattern of recent growth in Africa has not delivered the jobs and poverty reduction that Africa has been seeking. Africa's rural communities have been left behind in its “positive” economic growth.  This is the “two-speed” economy tale told by the McKinsey Global Institute in a Mexican report titled "Growth and prosperity in a two-speed economy." The report shares how Mexico, a modern, fast-growing economy, with globally competitive multinationals and cutting-edge manufacturing...

Greetings, Exciting news!  The Youth in Agriculture Blog Competition (YoBloCo Awards) is now open!  After an initial selection that followed the blog submission, 145 blogs (out of 194 submissions) have met the minimal requirements of an eligible blog and have been qualified for public evaluation. Guess what...?!  This blog, "Afrika's Barefoot Agriculture E-ssue" is one of the pre-selected individual blogs! There are 121 blogs in the individual category and 24 blogs in the institutional category.  If this blog happens to be one of your favorite blogs, please do not hesitate to vote for it NOW! Here is the procedure: 1. Click on the link below to go to the voting page: https://tinyurl.com/individual-blogs (By the way you are supposed to vote for the two best blogs of your choice) 2. On the website of the YoBloCo Awards, you will find my blog's profile listed as "The Barefoot E-ssue". You should see something that looks almost like t...

"When we invest together, good things grow" IFAD, 2014 I have never heard it expressed in a simpler and more powerful way before. I happened to bump into one of IFAD’s videos on the Year of family farming, and I must say, this short video is one of the best lectures I have had on agricultural investment and development so far. You can watch the video here  (right click to open it in a new tab or new window). A screen shot from the video Below, I share with you three main insights from the video and my short homework exercises on “what I learnt.” Insight Number 1: One third of the global population have their livelihoods dependent on small farms, that’s approximately 2.3 billion people and they work extremely hard for long hours every day, struggling to feed their families and educate their children. What I learnt: I realized just how important productivity and profitability increasing technologies are to helping change the world. The need for more...

A couple of months ago, I wrote an article entitled, "What does development mean to you... Never miss the value for the money" I know and understand that the post was not that popular because it carried a little bit of mind-boggling issues. My apologies, but the whole idea is to trigger thoughts outside the box and to foster dialogue, so that at the end of the day, we all get the fundamentals right and we are operating on the same wavelength. By the way, we are still celebrating the "Year of Agriculture and Food Security (I usually call it the  YoAFS )" and the "Year of Family Farming." And I am becoming really excited by the increasing amount of YoAFS "multimedia traffic" I am encountering in the digital space.Was just having a look at the  AU page  for the YoAFS, and check out a glimpse of it below: Anyway, before I get carried away, let me talk about what I really want to talk about. In my earlier "Development Perspectives A...

90 days 89 days 88 days ... and counting Well, we all got really excited when the leaders of Africa in 2012, declared 2014 the year of Agriculture and Food Security. Well I could be seen by others to be asking or expecting too much if I say, what I am about to say, but I will say it anyway... "We have not managed to make the first 17 days of 2014 as Africa's Year of Agriculture and Food Security (YoAFS) effectively count, and hence we need to roll up our sleeves and increase momentum..."  This statement does not mean that our leaders are doing nothing. Certainly not. I know there are a number of high level meetings taking place on the continent and beyond deliberating how the YoAFS can be the dawn of Africa's century. But, while the high level technical meetings are happening; for instance, while our leaders are preparing for the 22nd Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union which will run from the 24th to the 31st of January...

Wishing you all my friends a very happy, pleasant and prosperous 2014. Remember to trust your intuition, to do the right thing and never miss the VALUE 4 the Money!!!

Most of Africa's youth are unemployed. Reportedly, 60% of the Africa’s unemployed are aged 15-24 years, and underemployment is pervasive among rural youth and growing among urban youth.  "Young Academics Mutating into Farmers"... Smiling over a small garden I share with a friend in the town on Norton, Zimbabwe. In background, is a small portion of potatoes growing in sacks, an Israeli technology that is growing fast as a form of urban farming in Zimbabwe. The technology allows for a larger number of plants per unit area and improved management and efficiency of input use. Earning a University Degree, is really an envied achievement in Africa, but recently, in some African countries like Zimbabwe, the rate of unemployed graduates has soared and young people are desperate for jobs even if they do not understand the job description! What some youth are looking for, is just... a job. In the midst of the crisis a remnant of the resilient are mutating into en...

Volume 1, Post 1 "Qouted from Prof Mandi Rukuni" As we are knocking on the door of 2014 which will be the Year of Family Farming at the FAO and the Year of Agriculture and Nutrition/Food Security at the Africa Union, I have decided to dedicate this blog to celebrating Agriculture. By the way, I have also changed the sub-domain name of the blog from beatzw.blogspot.com to barefootagri.blogspot.com, "so don't get lost".   This post also unveils the first Post, under the title of "The Barefoot E-ssue Vol. 1." So let's enjoy the ride and see how far we go with this Volume. Specifically, as we discuss and deliberate on agricultural issues on this e-ssue, it is my hope that we will in 2014, bring to light the type of agriculture that will create a pathway out of poverty for hundreds of millions of Africans. After learning of so many farming and agriculture models as a young African student; I have received, during my time working with th...