Lloyd Mbiba
INTWASA/Pfumvudza agricultural programme is set to mitigate climate change and increase food production, a climate change expert has declared.
Lawrence Mashungu, a
climate change mitigation expert, in an interview hailed the Intwasa programme saying it will increase food production and reduce carbon dioxide emmision.
“One, it increases food production and it reduces emmisions by not disturbing large amount of carbon in the ground and thus keeping it in the ground and not in the atmosphere where it will increase the climate change phenomenon,” said Mashungu.
According to him the programme is a conservation technique because it demands minimum soil disturbance.
Minimum soil disturbance is a climate change adaptation technique as it requires farmers not to disturb large tracks of land by tiling it.
Soils are a store of large amounts of carbon dioxide and through tillage they release large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, which worsens climate change.
Mashungu further said Intwasa will allow farmers to harvest rain.
“Because our agriculture is rain fed we cannot complement our agriculture therefore the little that falls needs to be conserved,” he said.
“Now because of the fact that our rainfall is no longer evenly distributed that little rainfall needs to be conserved so this is an adaptation technique and that is very important.”
Pfumvudza programme entails farmers digging holes in straight lines and mulching them.
The holes are for harvesting water and mulching is for reducing direct sunlight, thus the rate of evaporation of water.
Zimbabwe has suffered severe droughts over the years due to climate change.
This has culminated in millions of Zimbabweans seeking food aid.
