Resilience Designs For Household Food Nutrition Security In Zimbabwe

Agriculture is a key driver for the Zimbabwean economy, and over 70 percent of the population depends on agriculture for their livelihoods. Drought is a major threat to agricultural productivity and smallholder farmers in rural Zimbabwe are prone to it since they lack the knowledge and best practices to cope. While climate-smart agricultural techniques can alleviate the consequences of drought, there is a lack of a simple and clear demonstration of how climate-smart agricultural techniques can be implemented at the smallholder farmers' household level to increase their resilience. Here we report the implementation of the Resilience Design in Smallholder Farming Systems (RD) Approach by the USAID Takunda Resilience Food Security Activity (RFSA) operating in Manicaland (Buhera and Mutare Districts) and Masvingo (Chivi and Zaka Districts) provinces of Zimbabwe. We show that a step-by-step demonstration of the implementation of the RD approach and its subsequent adoption by smallholders enhanced their resilience as well as that of their farming systems. Siphatisiwe Godhini in Zaka District doubled her maize yield from 500 kg during the 2021/22 season to 1,100 kg during the 2022/23 season on the same farming plot of approximately 0.25 hectares, after she adopted the RD approach during the 2022/23 season. This was despite a mid-season dry spell. We show that forging strong collaborations with government extension staff, local leadership and smallholders as well as adequate training and collective action among smallholders leads to food, nutrition and income security and significantly high adoption rates of the RD approach.