CCARDESA holds inaugural media awards

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 The Centre for Coordination of Agricultural Research and Development in Southern Africa (CCARDESA), has held its inaugural media awards with a call for journalists in the southern African region to take the lead in disseminating climate smart agriculture (CSA) information in order to help tackle the problem of climate change.

According to CCARDESA, climate change has been identified as a major threat that is affecting the SADC region including the agricultural sector which relies heavily on rain-fed agriculture. 

Gabriel Masvora of Zimbabwe emerged winner of the awards which were introduced this year, while Gloria Siwisha of the National Agricultural Information Services (NAIS) in Zambia, and Dickson Mmaba of Botswana emerged first and second runners up respectively.

Botswana’s Minister of Agricultural Development and Food Security Karabo Gare announced the winners of the inaugural awards during CCARDESA’s 10th anniversary commemoration last Friday.

Mr Gare congratulated the winners further applauding the partnership that CCARDESA had forged with the media.

“We thank BMZ (The German Federal Ministry for International Cooperation and Development) for the support and applaud the partnership that CCARDESA has forged with the media and hope that it will help to disseminate vital information and knowledge to our communities in the different countries of climate smart agriculture and CCARDESA programmes,” he said.

Mr Masvora said he was humbled to have emerged winner and urged journalists in the SADC region to bridge the gap on issues relating to climate change through talking and writing about the subject.

Meanwhile, Ms Siwisha appealed that the CSA media engagement is made an annual event so that as many journalists as possible have the opportunity to share the experience.

“I strongly believe that one of the reasons for the low production and productivity in the region is that climate change information is not disseminated effectively to compel smallholder farmers to adopt sustainable agricultural practices that would enable then be more resilient to climate change related effects; therefore, the decision by CCARDESA to equip the media with skills on CSA reporting is commendable and will go a long way in ensuring that the masses are well-informed,” she said.

CCARDESA said the CSA media engagement was meant to build the capacity of the media fraternity in the region about climate smart agricultural practices, initiatives, and programmes; to get the media to disseminate the CSA practices and initiatives to member states, and to set the media as a link between the knowledge products on the CCARDESA website and the farmers in the member states.

It also sought to award the media personnel who would implement their new knowledge.

CCARDESA was established in 2010 by SADC member states to coordinate agricultural research and development in the region.

Its mission is to promote innovative research, technology generation and adoption for sustainable agricultural development through effective partnership and capacity building.- NAIS

 

 

 

 

 

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