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Tendai Rupapa

Senior Reporter

IT was all work and no play when Agric4She patron First Lady Dr Auxillia Mnangagwa joined thousands of women for an emphatic launch of the 2023/24 Pfumvudza/Intwasa programme in Mashonaland Central Province as she forges ahead with her empowerment programme tailored to ensure women contribute significantly to food security.

Dr Mnangagwa, who participated in digging Pfumvudza holes, applying manure, fertiliser and mulching at Mrs Juliet Nyamaharo’s plot in Ward 11, held an interactive session with the community where she spoke candidly against laziness, drug abuse and domestic violence among many ills bedevilling society today.

She distributed inputs that included maize seed, traditional grains, chemicals, knapsack sprayers to women under Pfumvudza4she.

The seasonal forecast is showing the country is likely going to experience the El Nino phenomenon, which is characterised by normal to below normal rains, hence the First Lady’s drive to promote traditional grains which are drought resistant to ensure food security at household level.

The First Lady thanked the people of Mashonaland Central for voting President Mnangagwa for a second tenure in office.

“To be able to stand before you today is because of the work you did in August. Mashonaland Central Province thank you, thank you Shamva District we would not be here today had you not known who to vote for on that day.

“I thank you for holding fast on something that you know brings life and makes us walk strong in our motherland. I am so thankful. I welcome you heartily as we are gathered to launch the Pfumvudza/Intwasa Programme under Agric4She.

“In the olden days the rains would start falling at the end of October getting into November, but now you see the seasons have changed.

“This has prompted us to talk about Pfumvudza because the seasons have changed and we said we shall not lag behind. We have come to prepare for this season which has changed.

“As Agric4She patron, I am gratified to see women participating in such programmes. Seeing all these women here means work, so all these faces are eager to till the land. Let us applaud ourselves. If your bones are meant for work, come and let us take to the field.

“The one who is incapable, let us pull her and get to work and eradicate hunger. Let that person come and work with others as we also work with our children. If you live with a satisfied person, they think deeper and look forward.

“A hungry person is always argumentative and pulls others backwards. I thank you for agreeing to be called to do work. Last season we gave seeds to women who include widows, the disabled and everyone who is supposed to benefit including those who were left behind on Presidential inputs.”

“We managed to assist over 100 000 women under Agric4She which shows this was something that had been left behind yet it was something beneficial to our lives and to put food on the table.

“We gave prizes to those who came out tops countrywide because they contributed to the success of the programme which also saw us selling our produce to the Grain Marketing Board.

“This dovetails with the current season where we have to cultivate drought tolerant crops so that we harvest something. In this season I am urging women to prepare their fields. Are our fields ready because I have brought inputs madzimai?

These seeds are not for planting willy-nilly. There is a proper way of planting them. Today we were preparing the fields,” she said.

She asked the audience to explain how a Pfumvudza plot was prepared.

“What is it that we do and what then follows and why do we do this?” she asked.

A respondent said: “We first dig holes, put grass for mulching, add cow dung manure and fertiliser and we cover as we wait for the rain before planting. Mulching is done so that our ground retains moisture so that we can harvest even when we do not receive enough rain.”

The mother of the nation emphasised that Pfumvudza enabled people to harvest something even in bad rainfall seasons.

“Pfumvudza is a way of retaining moisture allowing our seeds to germinate so that we attain high yields and this is why we do this in view of climate change. The little rain we get or the little space that we get, let us guard it jealously,” she said.

The Agric4she patron highlighted the importance of traditional grains.

“These traditional grains were grown by our forefathers and these are the ones we have brought back today. These are drought-tolerant and they are back teaching us that our history must be preserved. The traditional grains are sustaining us even globally and that is why we are promoting them,” she said.

Dr Mnangagwa said the traditional meals cookout competitions sought to ensure people exchanged ideas and promoted the consumption of traditional grains which people were shunning in favour of exotic dishes.

Traditional grains are also famed for their high nutritional value and medicinal properties.

“When you are sick and you get your tablets and there is healthy food like this at home, you heal faster.

“Today I have brought inputs including maize seed, traditional grains, fertiliser and chemicals so that you can plant crops under Pfumvudza. You know when seeds come in, that is when bad things and miscellaneous things creep in. You then become popular for selling inputs, saAmai ndazviramba (I reject that as your mother). You have to jealously guard the seeds. We should not sell the seeds because this breeds hunger. Do not sell even a cup so that you can go and buy mutoriro at the bar. Do not sell these inputs because they are meant for us to be productive and be able to satisfy everyone’s food requirements,” she said.

The mother of the nation promised to award prizes to those who excelled as a motivational factor and to ensure women worked hard.

“Please go and plant because this year I want to award prizes and certificates to those who would have excelled. How beautiful is it when we make the winners stand before us as they parade their farming excellence. It’s good isn’t it?” she said and the crowd answered in the affirmative.

Herself a believer in hard work, the First Lady said it was important for people to work hard at all times and never lag behind.

“Why do you want to lag behind and not be counted. You will not be counted if you do not produce anything. You have a place where you are counted and if you are not counted in farming you are certainly counted elsewhere. Where are women mostly counted?

“In response the women said, most women are found in groups gossiping. Being counted among gossipers, is there a good name that comes out of that? These seeds have come so that we leave gossip and stop earning ourselves bad names. All women, you are leaders in families, in the communities, in the country’s programmes and everywhere else.

“If you are not well grounded you shame us all. Why then would we have to put on these dresses if you embarrass us. We must show our strength and be given our rightful positions as mothers and show that we can do it. Of course, we are different from men because of God’s designs. We want to discuss a little bit. These traditional grains that we are growing, is there anyone who can tell us about how we make sorghum sadza? What do we eat millet or sorghum sadza with?,” she inquired.

The question elicited a lot of responses.

One discussant weighed in: “First, we pound our millet and make it clean. Nowadays we have grinding mills, but in the olden days we would grind it on stone.

“After this, our mother would take her road runner chicken from the fowl run and boil it because we had no cooking oil like today. She would then fry with tomatoes from the cattle pens and dish with the millet sadza, it was nourishing.”

A second contributor shared her grandmother’s recipe.

“My grandmother would pound the millet to make it clean and then take it to the grinding mill before hunting for termites which would be prepared in peanut butter and we enjoyed this with the millet sadza,” she said to the amusement of the crowd.

The First Lady also sought to understand how marriages of yesteryear lasted more than those of today.

“Grandfathers, grandmothers, how should we live in the homes? How did you manage in the past to live in peace without fighting or taking drugs as is now the case nowadays?

“You still have your wife up to this day. What good did she do and why are you grandmother still with grandfather up to this day?” she asked.

An elderly lady said in the olden days, everything was anchored on love and respect.

“I want to explain the kind of lifestyle we led in the olden days compared to what the children of nowadays are now living. When I got married, my husband loved and respected me. As a girl I was trained by my parents to be submissive and being a hard worker. We were married well and respected our in-laws well and we would not speak with our mothers-in-law while standing,” she said.

An elderly man said;

“Our young people no longer respect one another and that is why their marriages are collapsing. These young children now brand themselves ama2000 (those born in the new millennium) and behave badly. Even when we got married, we took our wives, had children and now have grandchildren without any fights unlike the situation now,” he said.

A woman shared that she was living happily because she married at the right time.

“We are losing our marriages because we are rushing into them at tender ages without learning the expected behavioural standards and what is needed in the home. That is causing challenges in the homes. I am now 23 years into my marriage but have never been slapped in the face by my husband unlike domestic violence cases which are rife nowadays,” she said

A young man blamed marriage breakdowns on some greedy mothers who forced their daughters to marry for the wrong reasons, especially money.

“On behalf of youths, what I see happening in relationships is that the extended family system has collapsed and there are no longer aunties and grandmothers to promote good morals. Mothers are now covering that huge void yet they are now at the forefront of influencing their daughters to go after men because of wealth. Secondly, unlike our grandfathers, we young men of today no longer accord attention to our spouses. Women need attention to be asked as to how their day would have been and whether or not they would have eaten something,” he said.

This however differed with the views of a young lady who retorted: “You will be trying to speak well to your husband but he will be so drunk and inattentive. When he returns from the bar at times he just sleeps without giving me love.”

Another elderly woman left the crowd in stitches when she said back then they used to swim together with boys in rivers and nothing would happen unlike now when youths were having sexual intercourse in swimming pools.

So happy were the people that they applauded the First Lady for her Agric4she programme.

Mrs Rebecca Mukanwa, the wife of Chief Bushu, Mr Gracious Mukanwa, of Shamva expressed her gratitude to the mother of the nation.

“I wish to thank the First Lady for the Agric4She programme she brought. We are thankful for the inputs that she is giving us and the programme is uplifting us as women as we no longer beg from our husbands and we are producing our own yields as women. As spouses of chiefs, we are encouraging people to get involved in Agric4She and we are encouraging women in our areas of jurisdiction to use their own hands. The numbers of women joining the programme have increased more than last year,” she said.

Similar words were echoed by the host farmer Mrs Juliet Nyamaharo (53) from Mukanwa Village.

“I have great happiness in my heart because of the First Lady’s Agric4she programme. Our mother works with us from the beginning until harvest time. She is a woman of action and we love her hands-on approach. We harvested high yields last year hoping to excel more under the programme as the number of participants is growing,” she said.

Speaking through a representative, Mashonaland Central Minister of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution Christopher Magomo paid tribute to Dr Mnangagwa’s humanitarian initiatives.