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| HOW LIFE CAN CHANGE FOR 14-YEAR-OLD 'FARMER' |
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PATRICIA MOYO cooks dinner while her brothers look on. It’s the end of another hard day of farming.
Patricia, 14, lives with her mother, Daissy, and six siblings in Insiza district, in the drought-prone province of Matebeland South. Her eldest sister is HIV-positive and often ill. The Moyo family is part of ZimPro’s conservation farming project.
Using the farming skills and techniques from ZimPro, the family grow maize, groundnuts, sorghum and cowpeas. The benefits are startling – using conventional methods a family on average harvests 200 kilograms from one hectare. Daissy and her family harvested at least 1,500 kilograms this April.
Patricia says her life has improved since the family changed the way they farm. “Life’s better now because we have three meals a day and I can go to school,” she says.
Her mother now has an income from selling her surplus crops, which means Patricia has been able to go to school again.
“I think I will stay in school as long as there are enough crops to sell. I want to be a nurse when I grow up,” Patricia says.
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