The Sub-Saharan African nation of Zimbabwe is known for its tumultuous history, especially in farming and agriculture. The nation is now emerging from these past upheavals, but Zimbabwe’s farmers still have a daunting future ahead of them as climate change worsens.
Grow Further is now partnering with the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and HarvestPlus on developing a climate-resilient, iron-rich variety of pearl millet that Zimbabwe’s farmers can use to grow more food, better survive droughts and dry spells, and enhance national health and nutrition. Below, we share with you some facts underlining why this work is so important for Zimbabwe and how Grow Further intends to help thanks to our generous donor members and sponsors.
A nation of smallholder farmers
According to the US International Trade Administration, Zimbabwe’s territory contains over 4 million hectares of arable land. The vast majority of this land is under cultivation today. ITA says that 25% of this farmland is tended to by Zimbabwean farmers using only hand tools and draft animals. Although Zimbabwe is known for past land reforms that targeted large landholdings, agriculture in Zimbabwe has long been and will for the foreseeable future be dominated by smallholder farmers. It’s a nation of small-scale farms.
Most farming in Zimbabwe is also rain-fed. With ever-worsening global warming, these rains are becoming less reliable and less predictable. Last year, Zimbabwe experienced a devastating drought that wiped out most of its seasonal maize crop, and maize is a key staple there.
Recent regulatory reforms are said to have made investing in Zimbabwe’s agriculture more attractive, but its farmers have long been starved of access to credit and other financing mechanisms that might help them upgrade their operations. This continues to result in lower agricultural productivity across the country.
Despite some recent economic gains, Zimbabwe remains a very poor country.
A 2024-2026 country brief published by the African Development Bank notes that Zimbabwe’s per capita gross national income (GNI) was just $1,500 in 2022. ADB says the country experienced about 5.5% annual economic growth in 2023.
The economy relies heavily on farming. Agriculture alone accounted for roughly 12.8% of Zimbabwe’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022. Agriculture plays an outsized role in employment. ADB says about 60% to 70% of Zimbabwe’s population earns a living through farming in some way. Some of the country’s harvest is exported, however, “inefficient use of land and inputs coupled with limited irrigation capacity has resulted in low crop yields,” ADB says. A history of economic struggles has compelled nearly 3 million Zimbabweans to flee their homes seeking economic opportunities in neighboring countries, especially in South Africa.
Wheat production boomed in 2022 and for a while, Zimbabwe was thought to have achieved self-sufficiency in wheat. Then the drought came, robbing the country of many of the gains it had made over the past few years.
Malnutrition is also an ongoing concern.
UNICEF estimates that nearly a quarter of Zimbabwe’s children are stunted, a consequence of inadequate diets in the earliest years of their lives. Annually, about 15,000 children in the country require medical intervention due to wasting syndrome, UNICEF says.
Drought hits a nation
Led by the United Nations, aid workers requested some $430 million in early 2024 to help Zimbabwe’s population survive a devastating drought. More than 7 million people were thought to need some intervention to stave off starvation and famine. The food insecurity problem was especially difficult in Zimbabwe’s north.
The drought took a giant wrecking ball to Zimbabwe’s maize crop last year.
Though the nation is thought to need at least 2.2 million metric tons of maize production each year to remain somewhat food secure, Zimbabwe’s farms only managed to grow 700,000 metric tons for the first 2024 harvest, the UN estimates. And even 40% of this harvest was deemed poor by Zimbabwe’s agricultural ministry.
Meanwhile, herders have struggled to feed and find enough water for their livestock. Last year, UN and relief agencies worried that nearly 1.4 million cattle could starve or become so emaciated that they’d contribute little to overall food security post-slaughter.
Hope on the horizon
Zimbabwe’s situation is by no means hopeless.
As ADB data shows, the country has experienced impressive levels of economic growth and improvements in the past. It has faced setbacks in the pandemic and climate change-induced droughts, but Zimbabwe has managed to bounce back before thanks to the resiliency of its people.
Hyperinflation has long been a problem that threatens to decimate any economic gains the population makes. ADB says inflation rates in Zimbabwe hit 243% in 2023, but the government reacted swiftly and tackled the problem by adopting currency reforms that seem to have brought inflation under control so far.
International development partners, now including Grow Further, are also helping Zimbabwe where they can.
As noted, we’re now sponsoring an ambitious project being led by Dr. Henry Fred Ojulong, ICRISAT, and HarvestPlus to develop, popularize, and distribute iron-rich, biofortified, and drought-tough pearl millet to smallholder farms across Zimbabwe. This project is the recipient of our largest grant distribution to date, a sign of our confidence in Dr. Ojulong’s team and their plan to transform Zimbabwean agriculture.
Already they are making tremendous progress. There’s still plenty of work remaining, but we’re following their work closely and stand ready to lend a hand.
So, stay tuned for more good news coming from Zimbabwe. Meanwhile, we welcome your support as we move from strength to strength building a more food-secure future.
— Grow Further
Photo: The town of Tshelanyemba in southern Zimbabwe. Joseph Gakpo for Grow Further.
