29 June 2010
Farmer Nicholas Ncube knows all about bad harvests. In 2002, the rains failed and so did his maize plants.
He produced just eight buckets of the crop for his family of five. An average family that size needs one tonne a year. His wife and three young children only got through 2002 thanks to food donations from charities.
In 2003, he learnt about the Foundations for Farming programme (FFF) run by Tearfund partner River of Life and since then the shadow of extreme hunger has not darkened his door.
FFF has taught Nicholas, who lives in Zimbabwe's Matabeleland South, to concentrate his crop production efforts on a smaller part of his land. But the results are startling – crop output is higher.