By Joyce Chimbi
Held every year in Harare’s Botanical Gardens, the National Good Seed and Food Festival is increasingly occurring against a backdrop of debilitating shocks such as intensifying conflict, climate change and high domestic food prices that are worsening Africa’s food crises.
A list of 10 countries and territories with the largest number of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity in 2016 to 2023, included four African countries.
According to the 2024 Global Report on Food Crises, these countries are the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Sudan and Ethiopia. By mid-2024, the food crises had worsened in 18 countries including Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Sudan, Ethiopia, Malawi and Chad as they all had at least one million more people facing high levels of acute food insecurity than during the 2023 peak.
The event brings together farmers from all four corners of Zimbabwe to celebrate a holistic system – powered by agroecological practices. It is about ecosystems and agriculture working harmoniously to produce food that is safe, nutritious and environmentally sustainable. Underlying the celebrations are efforts to resolve farmer’s lack of information, seeds, access to finance and markets.
Peter Mudzingwa, a young Zimbabwean peasant farmer in Shashe village and a graduate in environmental studies attended the festival to promote agroecological approaches: “youths, women, farmers cooperatives, associations and networks are increasing turning to agroecology to improve food and nutritional security, and building climate resilient local communities.”
Stressing that the issue of seed sovereignty is particularly “important as it touches on the fundamental right of farmers to save, sell, exchange and use seeds from their own harvest. This promotes the production of diverse locally adaptable crops to counter the climate crises.”
There are an estimated 33 million small-scale farms, producing around 70 percent of Africa’s food supply. Yet, people in rural areas account for 90 percent of those living in poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. Shashe, in Zimbabwe’s Masvingo Province has distinguished itself as an agroecology village that is rewriting this narrative.
Hundreds of peasant farmers at the event– most of them women and youth such as Mudzingwa – grow a variety of food crops from seeds carried forward from a previous harvest. At the heart of seed sovereignty he says, is Africa’s heritage and adherence to rituals that strengthen farming systems that are in tune with nature, adding an element of community, joy and festivities into agricultural systems.
“Peasant farmers are the custodians of African seeds and celebrating the diversity and resilience of these seeds should be a way of life. We have local communities where seeds are so precious that a mother will gift her daughter seeds as a wedding gift and a symbolic gesture, of transferring indigenous knowledge from one generation to the next,” he says.
“In Gutu village in the Southern part of Zimbabwe, we still have rain making ceremonies where specially prepared beer is poured on protected sacred areas to petition for rainfall and later on, thanksgiving ceremonies for a good harvest,” he expounds.
Tarisai Mazivanhanga, a peasant farmer from Manicaland province in eastern Zimbabwe was at the festival too and spoke about how such ceremonies bring joy to farming and keeps farmers in touch with their indigenous roots and traditional ways of farming that were much more suited to the environment.
“We are re-discovering our roots and using the wisdom of our forefathers to rebuild our food systems. For instance, we encourage all farmers to produce their own compost from farm waste. Establish a small compost pit and produce your own organic compost, within your farm. For pesticides, we have natural remedies such as cow dung ash, pepper ash, acacia ash and gum tree ash. Cow dung ash especially, is a very good natural pesticide.,” says Zengeya Sylvia, a farmer in Makoni district, Zimbabwe.
“You first burn the cow dung or acacia leaves to produce ash, and then mix it while still hot with your seeds. You then put the mixture in a container and once the mixture cools, you then close the container tightly and ensure that the container is oxygen free. Label the container and store in your seed bank and the seeds be safe and preserved for a very long time – as long as one year.”
Mazivanhanga says peasant farmers across the country are increasingly establishing seed banks within their homestead as demonstrated by the large number of farmers at the Good Seed and Food Festival who brought diverse crops grown on their farms for sale and exchange.
“You can build a small store and install shelves. Store the seeds in different containers and label them and come October when we plant our grains and cereals, you simply pick what you need and plant. From March, when you will have harvested your grains, you return your grain seeds to the seed bank and pick horticultural seeds for the March to October season and alternate in that manner. All year round, there will be planting and harvesting of various crops on your farm and money in your pocket,” Mazivanhanga explains.
Fionah Mangisi spoke about farming with alternative pollinators for healthy ecosystems, climate adaptation and sustainable livelihoods. Pollinators are critical in agriculture and for biodiversity protection. But due to climate change and biodiversity loss, and pollution especially from use of chemicals, there is a rapid decline in wild pollinators and this has worsened Africa’s food systems. Honey bees alone will not do the job.
“The agroecological way of attracting pollinators entails planting your main crops on your piece of plot, plant native flowering crops along the border lines all around such as tomatoes, coriander, okra, butternut, mustard greens and watermelon. These flowery crops will attract up to eight different types of bees. These bees will automatically become your farm workers. They will improve pollination within your main crops and significantly increase yields. We have no shortage of natural remedies to improve farm yields to feed our families and markets,” she says.
Agroecology is proving to be much more than a farming approach as the African Women’s Collaborative for Healthy Food Systems demonstrated to scores of farmers and food consumers from across the continent. As a collaborative of African peasant and indigenous women leaders, they shared knowledge and experiences towards ensuring that the food on the table and food markets across the continent is nutritious and healthy.
Individually and collaboratively, the ultimate goal of the Good Seed and Food Festival is to influence policies and public awareness of agroecology and smallholder farmers rights, towards restoration of planet Earth and all its resources, and to build communities that reach seed and food sovereignty, and climate justice.
