Power and water shortages hit Chipinge chilli farmers in Zimbabwe

Source: Power, water shortages hit Chipinge chilli farmers – The Standard It’s a cloudy Wednesday morning in Chipinge’s ward 26 under Chief Garawa where Ceceilia Sigauke (53) of Makiwa Village resides. She is a red chilli farmer and the state of her crop this morning depresses her. Sigauke is one of the several women farmers in the district who have chosen chilli farming for the local and export market as they seek to diversify their incomes under a project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAid). The USAid Resilience Anchors project seeks to build local community resilience through this viable livelihood option in the wake of climate change-related risks. It also centres on strengthening locally-led development and private sector engagement under which the chilli farming project is premised on. But rolling power outages and water scarcity pose a threat to the chilli farming venture. “We saw a great improvement in our farming methods, but from time ...