The Sunday Mail
Chris Mabeza
“Days are numbered,” Mr Zephaniah Phiri Maseko would say as his biological clock’s ticking grew louder by the day.
Sadly, and unknown to him or any of us, September 1, 2015 was to be the last of the numbered days, the day he took his last breath.
The internationally acclaimed water harvester from Zvishavane passed on after succumbing to an illness at the age of 88.
I was privileged to occupy a front row seat at his agricultural practices during a 14-month long ethnographic study for my PhD at his residence a few years ago and hen I got to learn many things about him.
He is the smallholder innovator who taught us to “marry water and soil”, “plant water” as we plant crops, and to conserve our environment.
Mr Phiri Maseko’s innovative agricultural practices have helped smallholder farmers in semi-arid regions to adapt to a changing climatic environment.
Born in 1927 in Zvishavane, he grew up in colonial Zimbabwe in a harsh environment characterised by rainfall variability.
As if that was not enough, he had to contend with poor soils and oppressive legislation.
In the 1970s he was arrested by the colonial authorities for daring to challenge legislation that forbade him from cultivating a wetland.
Ultimately he was allowed to till the wetland after authorities realised that his agricultural practices were sustainable. These practices included construction of structures that harvest water.
With the advent of Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle in the 1970s, Mr Phiri Maseko was placed under house arrest after an arms cache was “discovered” at his home by soldiers of the Rhodesian army. He was to remain under house arrest until Independence in 1980.
In the post-Independence era he continued to upgrade structures that harvested water that included what he called “sand traps” and the “immigration centre” where he “welcomed” water to his plot.
His adroit water harvesting techniques transformed his plot into a “Garden of Eden”.
These techniques enabled him to adapt to climate change and to date his agricultural practices have spread to other areas of Zvishavane and beyond. He shared his practices with other farmers mainly through the NGO, Zvishavane Water Project, which he helped to find.
With Mr Phiri Maseko’s death, John Donne’s “for whom does the bell toll” sounds fitting.
Donne says that all of us are part of humankind and that any person’s death is a loss to us all and, therefore, the bell tolls for us all.
The bell of Mr Phiri Maseko’s death tolls for us all. We should pause and reflect on his legacy and how we have benefited from his agricultural practices as we grapple with an uncertain future.
Greenhouse gases continue to be “pumped” into the atmosphere. There appears to be no agreement in sight for the reduction of green house gas emissions. The major emitters continue to bicker, a typical proverbial dialogue of the deaf with nobody appearing to comprehend what the other is saying.
In these trying times we take solace from the opportunities that come our way if we embrace innovations for managing climate variability from smallholders such as Mr Phiri Maseko.
We should consider ourselves fortunate to have lived in his era.
The real meaning of Mr Phiri Maseko is not what he has left his children with but what he has left in them and indeed in all of us — that in our individual efforts we can work to conserve the earth that we all depend on for survival.
In Chewa, Mr Phiri Maseko’s ancestry, all we can say is “zikomo” (thank you) (as Ken Wilson, his friend would say).
Your bell tolls for us all.
This article first appeared for Rhodes University’s Amanzi for Food Project
