“The biggest shock coming here was seeing forage brassica fed to animals. It’s for human consumption where I come from, all of a sudden you come here and see a paddock full growing for animals" laughs Emmanuel Chakwizira.
When you come from Zimbabwe to Canterbury and are a crop scientist, culture shock could look a little different.
Emmanuel Chakwizira is a scientist at Lincoln’s Plant and Food Research where he works with forging crops.
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Pallaton forage brassica Photo: Copyright © The New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Limited. All rights reserved.
He grew up in Harare and comes from a farming family himself. Although he didn't exactly take up the family business, he somewhat chose to walk a similar path after studying agriculture science in Harare.
"There we mainly grow maize, it's a staple food. Legumes and peanuts for crop rotation. "
Emmanuel Chakwizira, crop scientist, Plant and Food Research, Lincoln. Photo: RNZ
"Farming in Zimbabwe is very different. One of the main things is scale. Here most crops are grown for fodder so it's intensive, there we grow for human consumption."
Listen to this Voices episode on Emmanuel's story, his experiences as a scientist working with crops in Zimbabwe all the way to Canterbury.
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Photo: Plant&Food Research New Zealand
Summer is a peak time for his work, when the forage brassica and forage rape plants reach their peak growth. His research is centred largely around foraging crops and their uptake of nitrogen.
It's important work especially as regulations around nitrate leaching in New Zealand are tightening up.
Researching the best ways to reduce leaching and still have high yielding agriculture is at the centre of scientists work, like Emmanuel.
