The long-awaited rains during the planting months never came, leaving Zimbabwe in the throes of drought. In Stefano Stranges's photographs, the resilience of local communities facing the hardships of the climate crisis.
The lush Rhodesia, today known as Zimbabwe, described by British writer Doris Lessing is becoming increasingly arid. In some areas of the south-east of this southern African country, the rains long awaited by the population during the planting months never came, partly due to the adverse effects of the El Niño phenomenon. As a result, the Zimbabwean government estimates that 2.5 million people are at risk of malnutrition, among them half children.
Climate change is forcing a profound shift in the cultivation techniques used for staple foods (such as sorghum and maize) and in livestock rearing, given the scarcity of water and the growing spread of diseases carried by ticks and other insects, such as the fall armyworm.
Leggi anche: El Niño potrebbe fare del 2019 l'anno più caldo della storia
Photographer Stefano Stranges visited the province of Masvingo, where the effects of climate change are particularly evident, producing a reportage on the problems faced by the population due to the drought and the solutions offered by the project of the NGO Terre des Hommes.
To this end, a consortium of NGOs, including Terre des Hommes, is carrying out a project to develop sustainable agricultural and livestock practices in order to improve the resilience of the rural communities of Beitbridge and Mwenezi (Masvingo province, in south-east Zimbabwe), with funding from the Italian agency for international cooperation.
In an area where all water supply infrastructure had fallen into disrepair and was therefore unusable, the Terre des Hommes project rehabilitated underground and elevated cisterns supplying villages, with the installation of solar panels to improve water delivery to the cisterns.
In addition to providing training to local farmers on growing high-value crops using advanced irrigation techniques, project workers supported the establishment of microsavings and lending programmes in villages. Thanks to new hermetic silos for cereal storage, farmers can now keep their harvests safely for longer.
Leggi anche: Che rapporto c'è tra agricoltura e cambiamenti climatici: cause e conseguenze
Smallholder livestock keepers were involved in a programme promoting sustainable animal husbandry practices and the use of indigenous breeds of goats and chickens. A series of information sessions for families focus on correct feeding practices for infants and young children, agriculture and nutrition, and food processing methods that preserve nutrients. Specific sessions are aimed at pregnant and breastfeeding women and at teachers, in collaboration with village health workers.
All inhabitants of the communities involved (around 15,000 people) have been engaged in developing strategies to reduce the risks posed by natural disasters, such as drought and flash floods — extreme events that have unfortunately contributed to the degradation of the land.