BY PHILLIP CHIDAVAENZI

GWERU — When maize farming, which had been a lucrative enterprise for many years, ceased to be profitable due to a number of challenges, Francisca Paramu of Umsungwe Block in Vungu Rural District Council thought she was down and out.

From as far back as 1981, when she purchased the farm together with her late husband, their agricultural business was anchored on maize production. Maize was the gold that underpinned her comfortable life.

But when the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) — then the leading maize buyer in the country — caught a cold, the ripple effect saw Paramu’s farming enterprise
starting to sneeze.

“For a decade, we realised huge profits, but from 1992, the business was no longer profitable and we started just farming for subsistence,” she recalled,
adding that her 210ha farm would consequently lie idle for the next 24 years.

In retrospect, Paramu said if the government had decided to repossess the farm, she would not have cried foul because too much land was going to waste without
any productivity taking place.

But the turnaround that would see the “wasteland” transformed into a hub of productivity again came in 2016, and in the most unlikely circumstances.

“I was introduced to the beef-milk project since I already had cattle,” she said.

This was after the USAid-funded Feed the Future Zimbabwe Livestock Development Programme, which would see Paramu and several other villages in Ward 14 in the
outskirts of Gweru, become dairy farmers using their beef cattle.

Looking back, Paramu said she would never have imagined her farming business growing to the level it has now reached because she was sceptical at the
beginning.

“When they approached me with idea of dairy, I thought they just wanted to make me a model. But their persistence despite my reluctance showed me they were
genuine,” said the former teacher.

“Their persistence actually haunted me. Whenever a calf died, they would identify the cause and we have now been empowered with knowledge.”