Mizu Eco-Care had the opportunity to sit down with renowned Zambian conservationist and advocate for Conservation Farming and Holistic Management, Rolf Shenton. In this snippet of the full mini-documentary to come later in the week, Rolf talks about the need for us as black Africans and Zambians to change our mind-sets vis-à-vis the respect we ought to show to our traditional culture and pride in our black skin. He posits that in order for us a nation to achieve sustainable development especially in agriculture we need to go back to our roots and embrace the old farming methods. He further suggests that our embracing the modern western methods of agriculture are not helping us at all, In fact the use of inorganic fertilisers, the practice of early burning, the obsession with the growing of only one crop in fields is setting as aback. If we embrace compost manure, stop the practice of early burning, let fields have enough time to let organic matter decompose and the soil to have a full blossom of microbes then we will see our crop yields increase whilst the humus content of our soils will also flourish.
He suggests that blacks Zambian must unchain ourselves from the colonial mind-set and be proud of who we are as black people. We should be proud of our black skin without trying to lighten it artificially- Why do we want to replace our beautiful black afro hair with artificial hair? Why must we hide and cover who we truly are? Very important questions that we all must ask ourselves and most importantly must answer honestly within our own hearts!!
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