IN the last discussion in this series on strategies to build our economy through enhanced agricultural productivity, we highlighted the need to recognise and deploy the agricultural expertise resident in the local universities.
These are professors, lecturers and technical staff with vast experience of local and African agricultural conditions. We have previously pointed out the limited knowledge and skills base of most people who are referred to as ‘new’ farmers (murimi wanhasi/ umlimi wanamhla) and the need to capacitate them through continuing education.
The answer is simple; the institutions of higher learning should take leadership in providing agricultural education to the general citizenry.
Virtually all university academic staff contracts contain three key elements; teaching, research and outreach/community service.
While the teaching is generally focussed on students formally registered for specific academic programmes, in reality all university lecturers and professors have a national responsibility to teach members of the public in their areas of expertise.
Through interaction with farmers the academics in turn also learn to appreciate the practical challenges associated with agricultural enterprises which they should in turn pass on to their students.
The second element of an academic’s mandate focusses on research. While many people have a romantic view of research as a special area of academic pursuit to generate articles for publication in scholarly journals and dissertations and writing of theses required for the award of academic degrees, the truth is that research generates the knowledge required to drive the country’s economy.
After the journal publications and the dissertations, the knowledge generated by the research must be carefully digested, repackaged and deployed to increase productivity. That is the point when research becomes useful to the country.
In agriculture, researchers develop new crop, plant and livestock varieties, identify the best agronomic practices for optimum yields, find ways of controlling pests and diseases, develop more efficient ways of processing and value-addition on crops and even develop the best marketing strategies.
Research is critical for the continued survival and improvement of agricultural productivity. We must, through research, continually seek to improve efficiency in all our operations at all levels.
To remain competitive in the global market, constant research must be undertaken to improve and adapt the various sectors and systems of the country’s economy.
Without appropriate and carefully targeted research, a country will remain under-developed with its citizens wallowing in poverty and hunger.
Zimbabwe, and indeed all other sub-Saharan African countries, must learn to value research as a critical tool of development, and to capacitate its academics, who happen to be the sharpest brains in the land, to conduct relevant research. Most of the research will be done by universities.
The third element of a university academic’s contract is ‘outreach or community service’. In this regard academics are required to take deliberate steps to avail the public with their knowledge and expertise in their respective areas of competence. This is why we have decried the rampant practice both in Government and the private sector, of hiring foreign consultants when local competent experts are readily available to undertake the contract work.
So we have shown that universities are knowledge centres; knowledge acquired through study and knowledge ‘discovered’ during the research process. Much of the knowledge is written up in books, in journals, academic theses and dissertations. Some of the knowledge is theoretical and there is need to translate it into practical activities that yield goods and services.
In the case of agriculture, for example, the knowledge on how to increase Zimbabwe’s maize productivity from an average of one tonne per hectare, six tonnes/ha, is already available, having been obtained through research. And yet the country is seriously threatened by food insecurity! What needs to be done to translate production knowledge into practical production?
The challenge is to disseminate this knowledge through training and impart the relevant production skills to the farming public. This is the point where universities, as the nation’s recognised knowledge centres, must engage the people to impart the relevant knowledge and skills.
There is often an assumption, which is in fact is a myth, that the academics know and the people are ignorant. The truth is that all parties have much to learn from each other.
The critical element is the need to identify strategies for providing in-situ practical agricultural training for pupils, teachers and parents (farmers). Universities, as knowledge centres, have a mandate to generate, package and disseminate knowledge to the general public.
In Africa, however, universities continue to be viewed as ivory towers and as citadels of Western knowledge. While many factors are behind the low national average yields for various crops, most blame must go to lack of appropriate knowledge and practical skills among farmers and those who purport to teach them. The young who grow up to eventually take up farming must receive appropriate formal training.
Practical agriculture exercises given in some training courses do not provide substantial experience, skills or appreciation of the issues affecting practical agricultural production. This situation is evident from interviewing some recently graduated agriculture course participants; they lack essential practical skills for many basic operations. Agricultural training programmes at local colleges need to be periodically reviewed as there seems to be too much theory and too little practice! What is the balance?
The University of Zimbabwe (UZ) is developing a model that seeks to create a platform for mutual co-learning among university academics, their students, school teachers, their pupils and the farmers. The objective is to compliment AGRITEX and other extension organisations as a strategy to enhance local food production by capacitating the young, their parents and teachers.
In the UZ proposed model, university teachers, their students, school teachers, their pupils and local parents collaborate to establish field laboratories for co-learning and research in the form of demonstration plots highlighting different technologies for production of different crops and livestock. University and college of agriculture lecturers and students will interact with the local school pupils, teachers and parents to learn and share experiences under real life farming situations.
The proposed approach will ‘catch the young pupils’ and prepare them for potential future careers in farming. The university lecturers and student participants will move beyond the textbook to gain valuable practical agricultural experience while teachers and farmers will gain practical skills and valuable technical information. Over time the university teachers will gain practical skills to be incorporated in their teaching and research programmes.
Higher education institutions must be engaged to play a leading role in boosting Zimbabwe’s agricultural production!
The struggle to improve agricultural productivity through building the human factor capacity continues.
Mari hairime! Chinorima vanhu!
Victory over hunger and poverty is certain!