The Shashe farms in the Runde catchment area of Zimbabwe extend across three villages. Since 2010, over 500 families from the region have worked alongside ZIMSOFF (Zimbabwe Smallholder Organic Farmers Forum) and AZTREC (Association of Zimbabwe Traditional Environmental Conversationists) to revive arid cattle-ranching land into rich, abundant food forests.

At the beginning of the project, the farmland of Shashe was suffering from soil degradation caused by poor livestock management. Cattle trampled land bare, making it susceptible to land erosion during the rainy seasons and without protection from the sun in the dry seasons. Compounding the issue is the effects of climate change such as prolonged droughts, leaving the farms in chronic need of water management to feed crops and livestock.