… as it donates tablets to extension workers
By Tafadzwa Muranganwa
Realising the immense benefits of digitizing extension services in Zimbabwe, the humanitarian agency, World Food Programme has donated high-end tablets to some government extension workers.
Speaking at the official handover of the 635 tablets to the Agricultural Rural Development and Advisory Service (ARDAS) on Tuesday, WFP Head of Programme Roberto Borlini said the donation will help in rural development and monitoring market activities.
“These devices will be used by ARDAS extension staff to perform a number of different tasks in support of rural development activities. They will facilitate market monitoring activities.
“ARDAS staff will be able to gather crucial information throughout the year from rural and urban markets in Zimbabwe, monitoring prices and availability of different commodities. The information will be shared widely with Government and development partners through a variety of platforms, like the National Cash Working Group and the Food and Livelihoods Security Cluster, to support in programme planning, “the WFP head of programme said.
The country is battling climate change effects and according to Mr Roberto Borlini, the gadgets will come in handy in raising awareness and knowledge on the phenomenon.
“Furthermore, ARDAS extension officers will be able to receive relevant and location-specific climate information through the gadgets and disseminate the information to farmers to improve decision-making on the crops and livestock options for the season.
“This effort will complement WFP’s approach to Participatory Integrated Climate Services for Agriculture (PICSA) for community planning of agricultural activities where we combine historical climate data and forecasts with farmers’ knowledge of what works in their own context, “he added.
The humanitarian agency and ARDAS officers will collaborate on WFP’s Food for Assets programme. The Food for Assets programme in 2023 is earmarked to assist 75,000 people in six districts namely Kariba, Rushinga, Masvingo, Zvishavane, Mwenezi and Chiredzi.
The beneficiaries of the initiative ‘will work on community assets like nutrition gardens, digging of boreholes and equipping them with solar pumping systems to improve their resilience to shocks. In exchange, the participants will receive 5,758MT of food over the next six months.
The chief director of ARDAS, Professor Obert Jiri lauded the donation but was quick to alert that more digital resources are needed for efficient extension services.
“This donation comes in handy in enabling us to use ICTs in agriculture. However, we would like to have more of these devices because our extension officers including those in the veterinary service are over 6 000.
” We do e-exams after every 6 months as a way to retool the extension workers but we face a lot of challenges that include network problems and lack of devices to efficiently capacitate them,” Prof Obert Jiri said.
There have been loud calls by digital activists in Zimbabwe and across Africa that their governments deepen mobile and internet penetration to realise the digital transformation of the agriculture sector.