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Zimbabwe: Rains finally come, and so do the rodents

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BY LINDA MUJURU

Remeredzai Mashakwari reaches into a bucket and pulls out a small, dark-gray rodent.

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With a sharp stick, she opens the tiny animal’s stomach, and guts it.

When she’s done with the remaining 400 rodents, she boils them and removes their fur.

Not far from Mashakwari, other women and children process more than 1,500 rodents.

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Then she starts frying.

The pleasant aroma of sizzling, seasoned meat replaces that of raw blood and guts.

Known as “mbeva” in the Shona language, the small rodent, which resembles a mouse, is a delicacy, says Florence Chijumana, one of the women.

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“It tastes better than any meat.”

That is especially true when grain harvests are plentiful, and people hunt mbeva for leisure, she says.

Now, farmers are hunting it for survival.

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Zimbabwe had higher than average rainfall last season, which led to population outbreaks of rodents that have decimated crops, creating severe food shortages.

The crisis comes after years of drought depleted food stocks, according to a report released in August by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, a United States Agency for International Development research group.

On top of this, lockdowns and closures of international borders during the coronavirus pandemic have hindered the transportation of food.

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Drought in southeast Zimbabwe, where the village of Chisumbanje is located, lasted from late 2018 to early 2020, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Centre.

Rainfall spiked dramatically in mid-2021, reaching a 10-year record high in October.

The rains are what drew the rodents, which can cause total devastation to food crops, says Shingirayi Nyamutukwa, who heads the Plant Protection Research Institute, an arm of the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Resettlement.

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Nyamutukwa says rodent outbreaks are common in agriculture, attacking a variety of crops in all stages of food production and storage.

There are nearly 400 species of rodents in Africa, but only 5% are crop pests, according to a 2017 study in Burleigh Dodds Science Publishing, a British agricultural science journal.

Two species — the multimammate rat and the grass rat — are most responsible for population outbreaks in sub-Saharan Africa. Although they are small in size, they cause so much damage because they are prolific breeders.

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The young reach sexual maturity after 90 days, and females can conceive again as early as 24 hours after giving birth.

Globally, annual crop losses to rodents can range from 10 percent to 15 percent, according to a 2020 study published in Oecologia, a German journal of plant and animal ecology.

Consequences of rodent outbreaks are often less drastic in wealthy countries because they have significant food reserves.

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Governments of those countries also often help farmers fight threats to food production.

In Australia, where a recent rodent outbreak devastated crops, the state government of New South Wales set aside 50 million Australian dollars to help farmers battle the plague.

In countries like Zimbabwe, whose governments neither help control rodents nor compensate farmers for crop losses, outbreaks can have serious impacts on food and economic security.

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“If rodents are not controlled properly, they can cause 100% crop loss, not only in the fields, but also in storage,” says Nyamutukwa of the Plant Protection Research Institute

The food crisis has left farmers like Chijumana and Mashakwari with no alternative but to hunt rodents.

“In the past years, I would harvest three full scotch carts of maize,” Chijumana says.

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“This year, I got nothing because of rodents, so we decided to capture them for food and cash.”

Mashakwari says she and other farmers go out to ravaged maize fields and stay for up to three nights at a time, setting traps with buckets of water to drown the rodents.

They return home with hundreds of them, which can fetch around US$50.

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They feed some to their families and sell the rest.

For a season spanning November to April, Mashakwari says she leased a hectare of farmland for US$67.

Without rodents, she would have harvested five tonnes of maize and earned about US$1,500.

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“This is all we have for now,” she says, pointing at a frying pan of sizzling creatures.

“It’s better than no food at all. But when there are none left to catch, we’ll have to find something else to survive on.”- Global Press Journal

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In the community

Zambia Limits Worship Time To Two Hours To Curb Cholera

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BY AFRICANEWS

Churches across Zambia have received a mandate to restrict worship sessions to a maximum of two hours.

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The directive, issued by Ndiwa Mutelo, a high-ranking official overseeing religious affairs, also prohibits the sale of perishable and ready-to-eat foods within church premises.

To further minimize the risk of disease transmission, worshippers are strongly advised to refrain from handshakes and hugs. In an official statement, Mr. Mutelo emphasized the importance of maintaining hygiene within worship centers.

Churches are now required to provide safe drinking water, designated hand washing points, and make available alcohol-based hand sanitizers to their congregants.

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The urgency of these measures is underscored by the significant cholera outbreak in Zambia, with more than 7,800 reported cases since last October. Over the past 24 hours alone, the health ministry has recorded over 400 new cases and 18 fatalities.

This latest intervention aims to mitigate the impact of the cholera epidemic, emphasizing the collective responsibility of religious institutions in safeguarding public health.

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SOURCE: AFRICANEWS

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Lubangwe villagers walk over 30KM to access nearest clinic

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BY LWANDLE MTHUNZI

Access to primary healthcare remains a major challenge to communities in Lubangwe resettlement area in Hwange where the nearest clinic is more than 30km away for some.

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Lubangwe Railway Farm 55 resettlement was established in 2000 during the country’s land reform when scores of villagers, mostly families of war veterans, were settled in the area.

Government did not construct schools and clinics and old farm buildings were converted into learning facilities.

While some schools are now available as a result, although far away from some villages, the communities remain with no health facility which makes access to health a major challenge.

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The worst affected are pregnant women and people living with chronic diseases such as HIV and TB who have to regularly get their monthly allocation of life saving tablets.

Edwin Nyoni, head of village 1 said had it not been for village health workers mortality could be high for people with chronic illnesses.

“We don’t have a clinic and people walk 25km to 30km to Ndlovu clinic because most have no money for transport. We risk our lives through the wildlife infested bush to Ndlovu hence we appeal to the government to help us establish a clinic nearby. We have village health workers who assist to reduce mortality and prevent home deliveries by making sure pregnant women and the chronically ill are assisted to go to hospital,” he said.

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In village 2 villagers are patiently waiting for the opening of a clinic after a building was identified for use as a health facility.

The structure has no electricity and water, said village head Joseph Munsaka.

“They promised to bring some nurses to use a building that is lying idle. They said they want to connect water and electricity and we hope this will happen soon to save lives,” he said.

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Gilbert Munkuli said sometimes health authorities visit with a mobile clinic at the nearby Nyongolo primary school.

He said some of his villagers walk more than 30km because they have no money for transport making access to health difficult.

“It is more than 30km to go to Ndlovu Clinic and health workers sometimes come to Nyongolo Primary School to give tablets especially to the chronically ill. Those with money sometimes hire cars but some die at home or fail to go to hospital which worsens the burden of diseases such as TB,” he said.

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Because of proximity to Hwange coal mining town where most people in Hwange worked at the Hwange Colliery Company, the burden of TB is high around the district as many families have lived in Hwange town at some stage before retiring to the rural areas.

Nesi Mpala of village 2 appealed to the government to open a clinic to save chronically ill community members.

“The clinic is far and people who seek medical attention suffer, with pregnant women and those with chronic diseases the worst affected. People living with HIV and Aids are better because health workers come to give them tablets but those with TB have to go to the clinic and struggle to travel because transport is expensive. We wish the government can give us a mobile clinic so that TB patients and pregnant women get help,” said Mpala.

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Government is working on a national health policy whose vision is to ensure primary health care is accessible to all communities although the plan has been in the pipeline for many years.

Health is a critical human right and key to attainment of Sustainable Development Goals.

 

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VFWT partners with Mvuthu villagers to tackle human-wildlife conflicts

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BY NOKUTHABA DLAMINI

The Victoria Falls Wildlife Trust (VFWT) has announced that they have secured funding to work with the communities of the new scheme of herding cattle, amid growing concerns of human-wildlife conflicts in the Mvuthu’s jurisdiction.

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This was announced by the VFWT Community Liaison officer Bongani Dlodlo on Tuesday at a village assembly meeting in the Mvuthu area.

He said the scheme aims to reduce the continuous attack of the domestic animals, mainly the cattle by predators such as the lions.

 

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The organisation will actively involved in various environmental issues in the area, including the introduction of mobile bomas years ago, making of chill dung to deter elephants among other rehabilitation projects.

“This will be a programme to run for three years, where we are going to create mobile kraals where the whole village, those who are willing will bring their cattle there and we will hire some willing community members above 22 years of age to look after them during the day and night,” Dlodlo said.

“We are trying to reduce the problem of your livestock getting killed and while under this scheme, we shall ensure that they get treated whenever they present some symptoms of not being well and we will also vaccinate and feed them so that they can increase the value in the market whenever you want to dispose of some of them.”

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Dlodlo also added that this will be done throughout the year.

“During the off-cropping season, we will be rotating them from one field to the other so that we also mitigate the issue of poor soils this community is faced with. By this, we hope that even your yield will improve for these coming years.”

Although some at the meeting met with skepticism, Dlodlo insisted that the villagers were not under duress to let go of their cattle and that the preparatory planning and strategies to be adopted were going to be done together with the communities.

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Fears were around the issue of religious beliefs around the rearing of livestock.

Other concerns were around the issue of having to walk long distances to milk cows and even having them to perform some day to day chores such as the fetching of firewood.

According to the Zimbabwe Environmental Lawyers, cases of human-wildlife conflicts have been increasing since 2016 by over 216 percent and Mvuthu villagers have often paid the price without compensation.

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Others also queried about what will happen if their livestock gets attacked while with the hired herders and Dlodlo responded: “We will not be paying for any compensation because ours to try and help this community, but because the herders and the place of herding will be chosen by you, we hope that this will be a holistic community project where you can always check on what is happening as we work together.”

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