Zimbabwe, Loice Tambama

IDE Zimbabwe Case Study:  Loice Tambama

Divorced and looking after two children and a chronically ill mother, 37 year-old Loice Tambama finds pleasure in her smallholder farming venture.  In the Makoni District of Eastern Zimbabwe IDE is working in partnership with local NGO Linkage Trust, to help poor households to grow food crops.  She is quickly realising the benefits of growing crops using IDE drip irrigation.

  
All the social gatherings that take place in Loice’s community are supplied with vegetables from her garden and she also supplies individual customers with a wide range of crops including okra, kale, herbs, sweet potatoes, tomatoes and maize.  As she has a reliable water source within the garden she is able to use IDE drip irrigation equipment to produce 3-4 crop cycles per year. 
   
From her last crop she raised Z$5,000,000 (£26) within a month from leafy vegetable sales and is currently making Z$300,000 (£1.59) per day from tomatoes.

She can now afford medication for her chronically ill mother and pay school fees for her children with the profits.  Loice looks forward to buying herself a bigger drip kit so that she can irrigate the whole garden at once.  Besides giving her time to do other chores, using drip irrigation ensures a good harvest - every time.

 “I have been involved in gardening for years but it has never been so rewarding.   The introduction of drip irrigation has dramatically improved my gardening efforts.” says Loice.