THE PROBLEM AND STRATEGY.

THE PROBLEM TO BE ADRESSED BY THE DEMONSTARTION


In order to ensure sustainability of agricultural production systems, future scientific knowledge should incorporate and strive to improve on local community knowledge and traditions. In the Shona culture and belief system, the land evolved with herding grazers and the absence of one results in the destruction or extinction of the other. The conventional grazing management belief that too many animals cause overgrazing is a misconception of the semi-arid savanna environments of Southern Africa where these environments evolved with thousands of herding grazers such as wildebeest, buffalo, and elephants with their predators’ lions, leopards, cheetah and hyena. The Shona believe that overgrazing is caused by inadequate recovery period for grazed plants. Hence, to the Shona’s view, that in conventional grazing management, overgrazing is due to either continuously grazing plants or due to rapid rotational grazing cycles where the plants are continuously exposed to the animals or grazed too soon before they have recovered from the last grazing(plants do not have adequate physiological recovery period).

In the wild, predators controlled the timing of rangelands use as they kept the grazers bunched and moving. When animals intensively grazed for short periods (at most a month) they left and came back after one or two seasons later. The numbers game (that too many animals cause overgrazing) had no role to protect vegetation from overgrazing then.

Pilot work conducted for the period 1986 to 2002 as regards time controlled grazing; overgrazing, rest and animal impact in semi-arid/brittle environments/rangelands can be summarized as:

• Overgrazing (in adequate recovery periods to the growing plants) weakens or even kills individual plants which reduces the ability of such plants to provide soil cover.

• Over-rest also produces this. The noted difference is that under overgrazing the plants are often of many age groups, while under over-rest the plants are usually old and dying with fewer young plants.

• High animal impact causes many plants to grow with tight plant spacing. On the other hand, no animal impact causes ever-increasing spaces between plants on capped soil surfaces.

• Overgrazing with low animal impact and no herding behaviour causes large bare areas to develop, similar to what is produced by effects of over-rest.

• Overgrazing combined with high animal impact, which is common in Zimbabwean Communal Areas (typical around dip tanks), accompanied by herding behaviour, results in tight low vigour plant communities of a near mono-culture with a high proportion of growing leaf and young plants.

• Time controlled grazing combined with high animal impact and herding behaviour produces multi-species of healthy, tight plant communities with a good age distribution, which would support many other life forms on such a land. This seems to be the desirable productive, ecologically stable and sustainable system to be promoted for the future management of Semi arid or arid grazing lands/rangelands.

The Solution for Semi-arid rangelands degradation: Time controlled grazing based on Indigenous Shona Grazing Management Practices; that is heavy stocking rates for short period (7 to 21 days) followed by long recovery periods (equivalent to full summer recovery in Zimbabwe – 180 days Nov to Apr). For community sites, land is divided into adequate units such that 1/3 of the area is grazed in early summer, 1/3 in late summer and 1/3 receives full summer recovery period (not grazed) over and above the arable area. These units are rotated annually.

This is simulation of the community herding that was characteristic of the Shona hamlets of Zimbabwe in the 16th to the 18th Century. Villagers herded animals in turns. As an example a village with 30 families then, each family took 7 days to look after the whole village herd. When the family had the turn, it grazed the animal close to its arable since it wanted to work in its field while children looked after the animals near her. This meant the rest of the areas around the other 29 families was resting. It would take 7 days x 29 households = 203 days for the animals to come back to the first family. But this is more than the summer period (180 days). This meant that only 26 families (7 x 26 = 182 days) would have turns to herd cattle and the other 4 families’ area around the field would have a full summer recovery)

Therefore, land management for semi-arid or arid rangelands, to be demonstrated at the Institute and in pilot satellite communities, will be based on time controlled grazing management observing recovery periods of at least one hundred and eighty(180) days in summer to control overgrazing and not to control the animal numbers. The results of the demonstration at the Institute will confirm that only the realisation of the whole is the reality that exists in the communal farmer's world. Piece meal programmes and projects that aim to favour any individual enterprise from a single disciplinary approach can only bring confusion and more anxiety to the farmers as well as continue a poor quality of life in a deteriorating environment.

THE STRATEGY AND FINANCE HYPOTHESIS:

1)Set up a research demonstration and training centre at the Njeremoto Biodiversity Institute in Gutu District Masvingo Province. So far the farm has been acquired and livestock have been put on the farm from loans obtained from the Agricultural Rural Development Authority (ARDA), for the dairy herd and from the Agricultural Development Fund (ADAF) for the beef herd.

2)The funding arrangements will be loans, and proposals to any other interested parties donor/charitable organisation. To this end the Institute is registered in Zimbabwe as a Trust, not-for-profit NGO since 2004 (as the Njeremoto Biodiversity Institute) and in USA District of Columbia as a 501c not-for-profit organization since June 2009 (as the Njeremoto Biodiversity Fund) to fund raise and receive funds for the Institute.

3)Collaborate with commercial, communal, resettlement and small-scale smallholder farmers on this work. Train these communities starting with pilot satellite communities. Train at Institute and facilitate implementation in the community site. Conduct look and learn exchange visits where the communities share experience and learn from each other nationally, regionally and internationally.

4)Register with a University for PhD hence repeat pilot work under scientific supervision at the Institute so that the thesis will be the basis of influencing the current knowledge. Demonstrate the paradigm shift to the scientists. Use the thesis to replicate and spread the knowledge. The thesis will also be the basis of books and pamphlets or publications.

BREAKDOWN OF THE BUDGET (USD$): AMOUNT REQUESTED FOR THE ACTION

PERSONNEL EXPENSES

YEAR 1: 300,000.00; YEAR 2: 360,000.00; YEAR 3: 480,000.00;
THREE YEAR TOTAL: 840,000.00

VEHICLE PURCASES, TRANSPORTATION AND TRAVEL EXPENSES (INCLUDING PER DIEM)

YEAR 1: 160,000.00; YEAR 2: 50,000.00; YEAR 3: 30,000.00; THREE YEAR TOTAL: 350,000.00

INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT AT THE INSTITUTE

YEAR 1: 360,000.00; YEAR 2: 300,000.00; YEAR 3: 50,000.00;
THREE YEAR TOTAL: 710,000.00

COMMUNITY INVESTIMENT FUND FOR SATTELLITES

YEAR 1: 100,000.00; YEAR 2: 260000.00; YEAR 3: 340,000.00;
THREE YEAR TOTAL: 700,000.00

FEES FOR COMMISSIONED WORK

YEAR 1: 5,000.00; YEAR 2: 5,000.00; YEAR 3: 5,000.00;
THREE YEAR TOTAL: 15,000.00

SUPPLIES AND EQUIPMENT

YEAR 1: 40,000.00; YEAR 2: 50,000.00; YEAR 3: 60,000.00;
THREE YEAR TOTAL: 150,000.00

MEETINGS INCLIDING PER DIEMS AND TRAVEL COSTS

YEAR 1: 10,000.00; YEAR 2: 110,000.00; YEAR 3: 130,000.00;
THREE YEAR TOTAL: 450,000.00

RENTAL

YEAR 1: 10,000.00; YEAR 2: 20,000.00; YEAR 3: 40,000.00;
THREE YEAR TOTAL: 70,000.00

PHOTOCOPY AND PRINTING

YEAR 1: 10,000.00; YEAR 2: 20,000.00; YEAR 3: 40,000.00;
THREE YEAR TOTAL: 70,000.00

POSTAGE, PHONE, FAX

YEAR 1: 5,000.00; YEAR 2: 5,000.00; YEAR 3: 5,000.00; THREE YEAR TOTAL: 5,000.00

OTHER EXPENSES

YEAR 1: 20,000.00; YEAR 2: 20,000.00; YEAR 3: 20,000.00; THREE YEAR TOTAL: 60,000.00


YEAR 1 GRAND TOTAL ALL BUDGET LINES: 1,000,000.00

YEAR 2 GRAND TOTAL ALL BUDGET LINES: 1,300,000.00

YEAR 3 GRAND TOTAL ALL BUDGET LINES: 1,200,000.00

THREE YEAR GRAND TOTAL ALL BUDGET LINES: 3,500,000.00

Membership Fees start when satellite communities come on board. Each community pays US$ 200 annually and the projection is Year 4 = 5; Year 5 = 10 and Year 6 = 20

Facilitation Fees are paid to the Institute by Donors supporting each satellite community programme @ US$ 50 000/ satellite community