The primary objective of this project has been to promote a shift to agroecological farming. This involves rebuilding soil organic matter and protecting it from further depletion, and promoting are turn to productive diversity through intercropping and rotation. By increasing biodiversity and habitats, farmers are restoring the balance between pests...

The local farmers in Mutoko, Zimbabwe, face constant food insecurity due to a number of factors which include the loss of biodiversity and traditional food crops. One of the traditional crops that has dwindled in production over the years is the Bambara nut. In the resettlement sector in Mutoko, Bambara...

Family farming is vital in ensuring food security, says the Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development on the occasion of World Food Day. Joining the ministry in celebrating the occasion which falls annually on 16 October are two United Nations agencies, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the...

Sustainable food production in the rain-fed smallholder sector of Zimbabwe is imperative in current and future climates given the increasing proportion and role of the sector in food security. Backgrounds of the smallholder sector include low resource bases, declining soil productivity, climate variability and increasing human population. Impacts of climatic...

The economy of Zimbabwe – once considered the breadbasket of southern Africa – has begun to turn around after a decade-long recession that saw a sharp drop in agricultural production, falling incomes and increasing food shortages. With some 70 percent of people relying on agriculture for their livelihoods, the strength...

In June and August 2012 the Department of Livestock & Veterinary Services (DLVS) carried out assessments that confirmed the severity of drought in some parts of southern Zimbabwe. FAO, with funding from the United Kingdom's Department for International Development and in close collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture Mechanization and...

Smallholder farmers face climate variability and incidences of drought have been characteristic of smallholder farmer production in Chivi. Drought was the key climate risk in the investigation of the impact of climate variability on the sustainability of agricultural production and development of the community. With regards to climate risk management...

This study builds on an earlier research done by the researchers in Chivi south district on the impact of conservation farming on food security. The major focus of this study however is on the conflicts and contradictions embedded in conservation farming owing to differential perceptions and life-worlds and implications thereof...

Southern African Agriculture and Climate Change: A Comprehensive Analysis examines the food security threats facing eight of the countries that make up southern Africa — Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe — and explores how climate change will increase the efforts needed to achieve sustainable food security...

The Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) implemented during the 2000s in Zimbabwe represents the only instance of radical redistributive land reforms since the end of the Cold War. It reversed the racially-skewed agrarian structure and discriminatory land tenures inherited from colonial rule, whereby over 6,000 large-scale white farmers and...

Although it is increasingly recognised that Zimbabwe’s Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP), initiated in 2000, was redistributive (Moyo et al 2009; Scoones et al 2010), few studies have examined the qualitative character of this outcome and its prospects for progressive social and political transformation in a largely agrarian society....

Viability differences in smallholder dairy farming are a result of differences in access to markets and services. It is hypothesized that innovations that improve productivity and market linkages also improve returns and viability. The viability of smallholder dairying in Wedza was characterised by interviewing 52 households using semi-structured questionnaires. Information...

The agrarian labour relations generated after the ‘Fast Track’ Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) tend to be neglected in most literature after 2000. This neglect largely resulted from the dismissal of the redistributive nature of the FTLRP and changing patterns of agricultural production by some studies (see Marongwe 2009; Masiiwa and...

Zimbabwe’s Fast Track Land Reform Programme (FTLRP) initiated from 2000 extensively redistributed land, mainly to peasants and working peoples (see Moyo 2011c) and, in doing so, unravelled the labour reserve economy created over a century of settler-colonial agrarian capitalism. This change has created a broader range of prospects for progressive...

The objective of this chapter is to help policymakers, researchers, and country negotiators better understand and anticipate the likely impacts of climate change on agriculture and on vulnerable households in Zimbabwe, given that about 70 percent of the Zimbabwean population is dependent on rainfed agriculture and the sector contributes between...

A cross-sectional study was conducted to determine the prevalence of sub-clinical and clinical mastitis and the associated factors in cows from selected smallholder dairy farms in Zimbabwe. Physical examinations were conducted on all lactating cows for evidence of signs of clinical mastitis. Composite milk samples were collected from all lactating...

The study seeks to establish why some smallholder horticultural famers in Chihota communal areas market their produce in communal markets which are known to generate less revenue for any given quality and quantity of produce than urban formal markets. It uses primary data collected from 119 farming households randomly selected...

Over the last fifty years food production per person in Africa has grown disappointingly slowly at little more than 10%. The population of Africa is growing rapidly at an average annual rate of 2.5% and is expected to almost double by 2050 to close to two billion people. Chronic hunger...

In Zimbabwe, WFP and the German Government’s development agency, GIZ, are working together to improve the food security of vulnerable people in rural Manicaland. Since 2009, not only has WFP managed the logistics and warehousing of GIZ’s largest agricultural project in Zimbabwe, but recently the project has also adopted WFP’s...

Agricultural productivity in Zimbabwe, like in many other countries in SSA has been declining over the years despite the numerous advancements made in agricultural technology development. Yield levels usually averaging below 1t ha-1 have resulted in persistent cereal deficits despite the large area put under production each year. Declining soil...