In Zindi, a mountainous village in Zimbabwe's Mashonaland Central province, rows of solar panels stand basking in the sunlight. In the farmland, the pump operates on solar energy, sending clear groundwater along pipes to irrigate the flourishing maize fields.

It's hard to imagine that just two years ago, this China-Zimbabwe agricultural cooperation demonstration village used to be a poor community plagued by water and electricity shortages.

"In the past, we were dependent on the weather for our livelihood," said village head Weveson Zindi. "During droughts, there was no hope of a good harvest."

The landlocked southern African country is prone to recurrent droughts and flooding, and has long been confronted with challenges such as weak agricultural infrastructure and lagging rural development.

In recent years, agricultural cooperation has deepened under the framework of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and the Belt and Road Initiative. The Zindi demonstration village project was implemented in 2024.

Chinese agricultural experts began with the most urgent issue: water supply. They drilled wells, installed solar-powered pumps and laid pipelines, building an irrigation system with a daily water supply capacity of 55,000 liters.

Zindi said with irrigation infrastructure improving, there are bumper harvests of crops such as maize and sweet potato in the once barren land. After the irrigation problem was solved, Chinese agricultural experts taught the villagers the use of organic fertilizers, gradually transforming the sandy plots into fertile fields for cultivation. They also helped build a professional agricultural machinery team by training local management and maintenance personnel.

The advanced techniques they introduced have significantly improved villagers' living conditions. Villagers have learned to grow different crops, such as chili peppers, okra and sesame seeds, and the sale of vegetables and poultry has increased their incomes.

Chinese experts have organized local villagers to form management teams, making crop planting, poultry breeding and maintenance of irrigation facilities more orderly.

The prosperity of rural areas requires not only agricultural infrastructure but also a transformation in management, said Zhao Ke, leader of the 4th China Agricultural Expert Group to Zimbabwe.