Zimbabwe has been experiencing food insecurity for many centuries. This study sought to explore and learn from Zimbabwe’s past and current food security (FS) efforts and challenges, through three historical periods, namely the precolonial, colonial and postcolonial, from about 1430 to 2020. The year 1430 marks the establishment of the Monomotapa state, one of the starting points for Zimbabwe’s own national reconstruction. Adopting a qualitative paradigm, data were obtained using document review and interviewing 85 purposively selected key informants, some of whom were found using snowballing. The study found that the adopted FS strategies during the precolonial, colonial and postcolonial periods were dynamic and mainly derived by new political agendas and crises. The food production and storage aspects of the colonial period were built around agricultural extension services and Grain Marketing Board strategies. The postcolonial period FS initiatives pivoted on humanitarian and development programs. Zimbabwe’s FS initiatives across the three historical periods remain susceptible to various challenges (droughts, political antagonism, bureaucracy, partisanship, corruption, incapacitation and weak support systems). As such, Zimbabwe’s food insecurity levels remain far away from being a reality, unless the identified challenges are taken head-on by all stakeholders. Therefore, the study recommends that informed local wisdom be given space in finding a lasting solution to food insecurity. Meanwhile, multistakeholder inclusivity, knowledge development and management should be made the crux of FS-related initiatives. This could foster new partnerships and encourage the ethic of working together and participation towards ensuring FS.
Worldwide, efforts to ensure food security (FS) are an old phenomenon, intertwined with humanity’s struggles with disaster risks that negatively impact livelihoods. Food security efforts date back to folklore, legends and religious stories (Van Niekerk
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) region has always committed to ensuring FS for its 280 million inhabitants (Muimba-Kankolongo
Food security and insecurity have immediate impact on how vulnerable communities manage their resources and their social lives. Stakeholders have developed and implemented various disaster-risk reduction (DRR) strategies and initiatives to mitigate food insecurity-induced calamities. Hence, the understanding of concepts is critical. Food security has been subjected to an array of transdisciplinary debates and given approximately 200 definitions over the years (Ignowski
Mlambo (
The precolonial period, according to Mazarire (
The Monomotapa dynasty used crop diversification, shifting cultivation, food storage and preservation, raiding, ranching, tribute collection, trading and hunting as its main food strategies to ensure the kingdom’s FS (Maruve & Chitongo
Like their predecessors, the Ndebele kingdom used various strategies to secure their FS. Chief amongst these were cattle breeding, cropping, food storage and preservation strategies (Andreucci
The magnitude of most of the practices and strategies presented above was insignificant to guarantee the production of enough crops to address macro food shortages (Lunga & Musarurwa
The colonial period refers to the period of British occupation of Zimbabwe, between 1890 and 1980 (Baxter
Food initiatives in the colonial period centred around agricultural extension services and the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) mechanism (Kramer
The technology transfers extension (TTE)
The advisory extension
Facilitation for empowerment
Master farmer training (MFT).
The TTE was predominantly used in the 1960s and 1970s by the then-government (Masere
In 1980, Zimbabwe became Africa’s newest independent state (Riddell
The study used a qualitative paradigm to gain an impression of how Zimbabwe ensured its FS from the years 1430 to 2020 and to interrogate the country’s FS initiatives. This interpretive design was adopted for its ability to systematically and objectively describe life and give meaning to human experiences (Patel & Patel
Ethical clearance was obtained from the North-West University (NWU) (reference number NWU-01665-20-A9).Ethical standards were followed by explaining the purpose of the research and by giving participants the assurance that confidentiality would be maintained. Participants were assured that the information they provided would be used solely for educational purposes.
This section focuses on the presentation of the data collected in the field, zeroing in on FS initiatives in Zimbabwe.
The participants had three distinct age range categories. About 29 respondents were aged between 18 and 35 years, 32 were in the 36–50-year-old range and 24 were over 51 years old. The average age of the study participants was 31 years, and the oldest participant was 84 years old. The majority were male (55%) and 45% were female.
Government officials interviewed explained that Zimbabwe’s FS initiatives span over three periods, the precolonial, colonial and postcolonial. Of the three periods, the postcolonial period has seen an increase in the number of players and investments working towards the implementation of FS initiatives. Some of these players are the GOZ, the FAO, the World Food Programme, World Vision International, the Organization of Rural Associations for Progress and Compassionate Development Services, amongst others. This was also corroborated by NGO staff who were involved in FS programs in the country. One NGO staff member had this to say during in-depth interviews:
‘Our organization is implementing livelihoods and food security programs using technology to increase yields and prevent serious food insecurities in moments of climate variability; CA [
Affirming the plurality of FS initiatives during the postcolonial period, the Umzingwane district focus group discussion (FGD) meeting echoed:
‘We have DRP [
It was highlighted during FGDs that projects targeted the vulnerable members of the community and individuals who showed interest in the projects, especially those that build resilience, empower the communities and make them feel like being part of whatever is happening in the area to develop a sense of ownership.
Observation during data collection revealed that about 2020 scores of FS-related projects had varying impacts and had been implemented in most districts of Zimbabwe. Participants noted that many NGOs were duplicating programs in bits and pieces and brought a lot of confusion. The number of implemented projects was too high and geographically spaced to show a significant impact on communities. Observations and perceptions of the participants revealed that agriculture-related projects, feeding programs, poverty eradication and drought relief programs were the most popular. Drawing from these findings, earlier history initiatives in the precolonial states have been reinvented in new names and refreshed processes. As a result, a new multistakeholder approach to FS has been born, whereby the government has built partnership with various implementing partners (NGOs). This new approach has seen the government implement massive agriculture-related projects, whilst the NGOs focused on capacity-building and food distribution, respectively. In general, respondents understood FS initiatives existed to build community resilience, ensure FS, socio-economically empower communities (especially women and the vulnerable), eradicate poverty, capacitate the community, safeguard national assets and develop a sense of program ownership.
Implemented projects and aims or objectives.
Focus group discussion |
Implementing partners (NGOs) |
||
---|---|---|---|
Projects | Aims or objectives | Projects | Aims or objectives |
Agricultural projects |
Build resilience |
Agricultural programmes |
Capacity building |
Command agroforestry |
Develop a sense of ownership |
Basic entrepreneurship |
Women’s empowerment |
Developmental fund |
Empower community |
Capacity building |
Improve technologies and practice |
Drought relief programmes |
Socio-economic empowerment |
Drought relief |
Irrigation for access to food |
Feeding programmes |
Ensure FS |
Financial literacy |
Mentoring |
Food for assets |
Fodder crop project |
Poverty eradication |
|
Poverty eradication |
Food distribution |
Reaction to El Niño |
|
Seed bank |
Small grain project |
Build resilience |
|
Water and sanitation |
Social service ministry |
Minimise CF and livestock conflicts |
|
Technical skills |
Ensure FS |
NGOs, non-governmental organisations; FS, food security; CF, crop failure.
Mabhena (
Furthermore, desktop study findings, as well as those of participants (especially from the government side) and traditional leaders, revealed that some of the postcolonial-period FS initiatives (postcolonial, i.e. from 1980 to present) are the following:
Drought relief programmes (DRPs)
Land Reform and Resettlement Programme (LRRP)
Command Agriculture
Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (ZimASSET) (Government of Zimbabwe (GOZ)
Zimbabwe’s food security and nutrition policy (FSNSP).
According to Munro (
Mutasa (
Command agriculture refers to a contract farming scheme rolled out in 2005 after the land redistribution, as well as a strategy to combat food shortages (Makuwerere Dube
Echanove (
The ZimASSET is a broad-based socialist policy towards economic sustainability, transformation and strengthening through the full exploitation of internal relationships and linkages of various facets of the economy (Sibanda & Makwata
The study found that the three historical periods were faced with impediments that each posed their own unique challenges in their given timeframes. See a visual historical footprint of these phases in
A historical visual footprint of challenges for Zimbabwe’s food security initiatives.
Challenges | Period |
||
---|---|---|---|
Precolonial 1430–1885 | Colonial 1891–1980 | Postcolonial 1980–2020/1 | |
Bureaucracy | - | ❖ | - |
Civil strife | ❖ | ❖ | - |
Corruption | - | - | ❖ |
Decline in external trade | ❖ | - | ❖ |
Exhaustion of soil | ❖ | - | - |
Incapacitation | - | ❖ | ❖ |
Non-repayment of loans | - | - | ❖ |
Pest and animal diseases | ❖ | ❖ | ❖ |
Political antagonism | ❖ | ❖ | ❖ |
Poor planning and supervision | - | - | ❖ |
Scepticism | - | ❖- | ❖ |
Successive droughts | ❖ | ❖ | ❖ |
Note: Please see the full reference list of the article, Ngwenya, S., Lunga, W. & Van Eeden, E.S., 2022, ‘Learning from past and current food security efforts and challenges in Zimbabwe: The years 1430–2020’,
Drawing from
It is apparent from the discussions that various international and national strategies have been employed to ensure and secure FS for all people in Zimbabwe. Studying Zimbabwe’s three historical periods (precolonial, colonial and postcolonial) provides a fertile ground (lessons and practices) on which new FS programs can be designed and modelled. The study further noted an increase in the number of FS players and strategies during the colonial and postcolonial periods; this could be influenced by the returns that come with implementing FS programs and projects. Consequently, this increase resulted in duplication of programs and antagonism amongst some stakeholders between 1980 and 2020, hence the demise of the FS initiatives during these periods especially. The study also found that despite a decorated history of FS strategies, Zimbabwe’s FS initiatives across the three historical periods between 1430 and 2020 remain susceptible to various challenges. These challenges can be categorised as family (strife, soil exhaustion, diseases), power (bureaucratic tendencies, lack of project buy-in by critical stakeholders, poor management, weak policy implementation discipline) and in recent times, the 2020 corruption malpractices, amongst others (Kairiza & Chingono
Based on these findings and conclusions, the study recommends the GOZ and its development partners pursue and enforce the reduction of the FS implementing players, so as to bring sanity, order and objectivity in the FS arena. An investigation was to be made on the sudden rise of interest in FS by many players. For FS to be a lived reality, all proposed changes should be implemented forthwith, with informed local wisdom being given space in finding a lasting solution to food insecurity by all FS stakeholders (GOZ, donors and implementing partners). As such, it should be adopted by all FS stakeholders and communities that already use it, be revived and be promoted to mitigate current and future food insecurity; that stakeholder participation, knowledge development and management should be made a top priority in all FS-related efforts. Based on the scholarly works of Marakas (
This article is partially based on the author’s thesis for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Science with Disaster Risk Science at North-West University in South Africa, with promoter Prof. E.S. van Eeden and co-promoter Dr W Lunga, submitted in December 2020.
The authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article.
S.N. worked on the idea formulation, designed the theoretical framework, methodology, data collection and analysis and wrote the article. W.L. reviewed and edited the article. E.S.v.E. supervised the writing of the article, through review and editing.
This study is part of PhD programme supported financially by North-West University in South Africa through two types of bursaries: postgraduate tuition and postgraduate international students.
This study was carried out based on qualitative data collected from four districts of Zimbabwe. If needed, the data are available from the corresponding author, S.N., upon reasonable request.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the officially policy or position of any affiliated agency of the authors.