Zimpapers Logo

Chronicle Reporter
Zephaniah Phiri, one of Zimbabwe’s most well known liberation heroes and experts in agricultural ecology and rural development, has died.

A former detainee at the notorious Gonakudzingwa in the early 1960s and restrictee, Phiri succumbed to a stroke aged 88 on Tuesday.

He was an internationally known water harvester who used locally available resources and indigenous knowledge to conserve water in arid regions for agricultural and domestic use.

Phiri won a string of awards locally and globally for his water harvesting techniques.

Ken Wilson of Muonde Trust, an NGO with which Phiri worked closely, regretted the innovator’s passing.

“The Trustees and the Phiri Award for Farm and Food Innovators, and the members of Muonde Trust announce with great sadness today the passing (following a massive stroke) of the master himself, the great spirit that was Zephaniah Phiri,” said Wilson in a statement on Tuesday.

Phiri will be buried today at his home in Mapanzure.