Processing crops in Zimbabwe: adding value through mechanisation

This blog continues our short series on small-scale agricultural mechanisation in Zimbabwe. This week we turn to how mechanisation is changing the capacity to process agricultural produce and so add value locally. Selling to larger scale manufacturers, millers and so on is less and less attractive. Transport costs are high, prices for farmers are often low and payment systems are unreliable. The costs of products in supermarkets are also rising daily, making it much better, many argue, to process locally. This applies to grains of all types as well as commodities such as groundnuts. Mechanical processing also reduces the hard labour of using a pestle and mortar for grinding or manually threshing crops, which is why some processing machinery – such as dehullers- is very popular with women.

In recent years, there has been an explosion of interest in small-scale machines for threshing, grinding, shelling, dehulling, expressing oil and making peanut butter. These may be machines made by larger manufacturers or more bespoke or adapted machines that are manufactured in local workshops and garages across our study areas. This manufacturing activity is generating jobs and providing important services. As people told us, we now don’t have to go to Harare or Bulawayo to get spares or seek out someone to do a repair as mechanics, welders and others are available locally.

The type of machines people favour – as with the production focused machinery discussed in the previous blog – are cheap, easy to repair, small, transportable and modular, in the sense that there are different bits that can be added on and purchased separately. Very often the cheap engines that we saw were so important to small-scale irrigation can be used to drive other machines, while tractor engines can be connected too.

The growth of small-scale manufacturing workshops is an important phenomenon that we will discuss at the end of this series. These are sites for innovation, experimentation and where people can make a living, often with several people employed at each site. Those who offer mobile services for processing itself or for repair for example may link their business to transporters to allow machines to moved around. Many people are involved, some with other jobs, some who are farmers and others who do it full-time. Many are young men without land and with few other options. In the national statistics, they are ‘unemployed’, but they are making a living.  

This growth has been driven by a number of factors. These include the decline in the formal economy and the experience of an unstable, volatile economy that has encouraged investment locally, with systems based on self-reliance. The growth of local manufacture of peanut butter, popcorn or other products reflects the failure of the formal system to supply, but it is also generates important income, especially for women and young people. Demand for new machinery or its hire is most definitely driven by the land reform areas, where production is higher and people have more surplus income to invest, either in the machinery itself or hiring it for their crops.

Mechanising processing is not without challenges though. With the dire state of Zimbabwe’s infrastructure, relying on mains electricity to power anything is foolhardy. Purchasing petrol or diesel for engines is risky too, as shortages often occur and prices rise endlessly. Many are using solar powered machines, but this is not possible for everything. Otherwise machines are adapted to have a manual option. Transport remains a big challenge for many due to high costs and the terrible state of the roads, especially in the rainy season. This means that some farmers do not have access to mobile services or cannot travel to a nearby town to get the services, pushing them to buy machines locally, meaning we see many more machines being installed in rural areas with a highly localised system developing.

There is a huge variety of types of machine, with many adaptations and some interesting innovations, and they are used in multiple ways. The following cases and associated photos give a flavour of this from across our sites.

Grinding mills – for grain meal and stock feeds

Grinding/hammer mills are very common in the Wondedzo area. The mill uses either diesel or electricity. Every household is using the hammer mill to make maize meal, small grain meal, as well as crushing grain for livestock feeds. To grind one bucket of maize, one has to pump out a dollar. The mills are imported from China, Japan, Britain and India.

I am Thamsanqa Moyo  aged 42 from Whitewater Primary school,  ward 17 settled in Silungudzi  village. As a teacher I have to make extra money outside my salary. A grinding mill was a missing  service  within this community. I bought a mill and put it at my home place, so customers could avoid delays of going to the council place. I bought the model at a Chinese shop in Bulawayo. The economics of grinding mills are as follows. I spend US$8 for 5 litres of diesel and can grind 40 buckets each at $1. That gives me a profit of $32. I don’t have hired labour, so I have to be at the mill all weekend and after hours at school. The good thing is I have little or no competitors at all. From my savings from profits in 2021/22 l have started to build a general  dealer and bottle store at the business centre. By the time l finish, l would have set my eyes on something else. l have also sent my first born to a remarkable boarding school from the grinding mill profits – not my salary.

My name is Shuro Zvinosara of Rossal farm near Chatsworth. As from 2019 season we started processing our own poultry and cattle stock feed formula due to the high cost and shortage of stock feed in Chatsworth agricultural outlets. I and my family members discussed a lot about stock supplements caused by poor condition of our stock during winter and even dry spell months. We own 23 head of cattle on our farm of 35 hectares. In 2021 I bought a grinding mill  of 22HP so that we can make our own feed formulation. We mobilised the surrounding community to pick Acacia pods, which we bought at a price of US$2/50kg bag. I grind rhwm and produce a very good stock feed very rich in protein. I also grind maize stalks, maize cobs and also bedding and droppings from my poultry. I mixed all these ingredients, adding a little salt of not more than 200 grams per 50kgs. During the first days my stock were not used to my feed but now there’s no problem. I have got good stock throughout the year, even birth rate of my stock is very good. My future plan is to grow soybeans and sunflower so that I can make my own poultry feed. Some of nearby farmers from Northdale and Lonely bought their stuff to my farm for processing and I .charge them. For every feed grind you pay quarter of your feed, but at sometimes I charge only US$1 depending upon your stuff.

I am Norman Mazhowo, a 41 year old male farmer from Mvurwi ward 29, Barrock farm. I specialise in cattle farming and have recently started pen fattening. To complement feed bought from National Foods, which I transport in my own truck, I make my one mix from soyabean and maize with their residues. I own a sheller which separate grain from stalks and cobs, and I think use a grinding mill to grind all the grain and create the mix during grinding. I have about 30 cattle in my pens at the moment, and the business makes a good profit, which has allowed me to buy some residential stands in Mvurwi.

Shelling/dehulling

This machine is used to shell maize grain. It is driven by an engine from the tractor. Farmers used to thresh cobs using sticks or logs, an operation that demands lots of labour. The sheller saves a lot of time. Shellers are however not widely used due to misconceptions, but in truth shellers are cheaper than manual shelling. It is well worth using a sheller if one has a big harvest of maize as we often do here in Wondedzo.

A dehuller machine is used to peel off grain shells, particularly from maize and sorghum. The processed maize grain is used to make mealie rice, refined mealie meal and mashazhare. It is now a common technology used by local farmers especially young women who shun the traditional pestle and mortar technology, which they say is tiresome and less productive.

I am Mrs Mamvura, aged 45 and a teacher based in Triangle. I supplement my salary with processing groundnuts. I bought a peanut sheller made by a local welder from scrap metal. Shelling makes USD1 for each two 2 litre buckets. I have my own groundnuts too and I decided to upgrade to make peanut butter. I have a roasting tray that the local welder made for me and I bought a peanut butter maker from Harare (in fact I now have two). I sell a 750ml jar of peanut butter for a dollar, and use both my own groundnuts and others I buy in.

Threshers

My name is Chiloto Makondo from Chikombedzi area and I am 35 years old. I am a farmer, but also used to do some brick making and well digging. Now I am into threshing business. I got a thresher made in our local township. You buy the metal and pay for the labour. They also do repairs at any time. I bought a very good 8HP engine in Harare to run it. I specialise in sorghum, which is the main crop here. I transport my thresher to different farms, either pulling it on a cart by donkey or if further afield I hire motor transport. People hire me to thresh their dry sorghum. I charge 1 bag for every 10 bags. The costs are transport and fuel, but my machine is efficient and 1 litre of diesel can thresh 1 tonne. The problem is the cost of fuel, which you have to buy on the black market at 30 rands per litre. Through this work I make a good living. I sell the sorghum to Delta company, which provides a good service.

My name is Clemence Chigumba and I am 67 years old. I worked at Hippo Valley for many years as a haulage driver. With my retirement package I bought a grinding mill, then tried my hand at irrigation, but now I am focusing on threshing services. I service the nearby Milikanga irrigation scheme, which has 20 hectares of wheat being grown on small plots of 0.4 ha. It’s under the Presidential Inputs Scheme so the wheat is sold to the GMB at USD335 per tonne. For threshing, I charge 10kg of wheat for every 5 bags. When I thresh sorghum, I charge 1 bag for every 10. I pull my thresher to the scheme by tractor. People book in advance and there is high demand for threshing services.

I am Mr Makamure and I am disabled now because of a stroke. Luckily I invested in a grinding mill when I was in a job, and this is a lifeline. I employ an attendant to be there. I have now extended the mill to include a thresher so that I can produce finer maize meal and mealie rice that people like. There is much demand here in Triangle area and there is always good business. I rely on electricity for both mills, which is a challenge, but the business is keeping me going and providing support for my 10 children.  

Peanut butter processors – and repairers

I am Joseph Maluleke. I was born and grew up in Chikombedzi area. I own two peanut butter making machines that I bought from Harare. Circumcision parties are attended by many people from the area and relish is cooked with peanut butter. I make a good profit from peanut butter processing. This year l have been employing five strong boys to operate the manual machine. I also own an electronic processing machine, but due to load shedding in the township I was relying on the manual machine. Long meandering queues were experienced each day, with customers attracted from all over Chiredzi South constituency. I charge 2.50 South African Rands for processing a cup of peanuts. Due to the highly labour-intensive operation, the boys had to rotate. Others have petrol- and diesel-powered machines but fuel costs have become a big challenge, and as a result they run at a loss. My groundnut processing business is good. I educated my young brother from it, who became a lecturer before his premature death. The business is my best source of funds. I also paid fees for one of my sons who later graduated as an electrician. The machine needs completely dry peanuts. If peanuts are not fully dried, they stick to the bearings causing overuse and then breakdowns. In the past, getting bearings was a problem as I had to buy in Harare, but these days local welders sell every size of bearings. In the past, when the machines needed repairs, I used to have to take it to where I bought it but now there are locally based and mobile welders who have all sorts of experience in metal work.

I am Mr Ephraim Chikombarume from Chatsworth Estate farm and I settled here in 2000 from Chivhu area. I started growing groundnuts for the past five years but nothing improved my lifestyle even my family. Each and every year I grow groundnuts of about 1.5-2 hectares and sold them fresh. But as from 2021 season when my local pastor Mr Javangwe discussed with me about processing your own stuff, I bought my peanut grinding mill. I calculated the outcome. I am now earning a salary. I sell 375 ml bottles of peanut at US$1. Not only that, but most surrounding farmers came to my plot for the processing of their groundnuts. I charge US$2 per five litre container. In my ward 32 in Chatsworth there are three with peanut butter processing machines, including Mr Javangwe and Mr Zikani a local businessman. These two have got electrical machines, whereas I use solar – that’s my advantage because of the load shedding. What I encouraged my fellow farmers is never ever to sell your produce unprocessed.

My name is Hombe. I own a welding shop at Chikombedzi Township. I have few customers at the Township Centre as compared to mobile welding trips around different places in the area, especially in the land reform areas. One of these places is Guwulini. In this place farmers prefer growing groundnuts and there are quite a good number of farmers owning peanut butter processing machines. There is therefore a high demand from farmers who need my services, so I come perhaps 4-5 times a month. Farmers usually give me emergency calls during peak periods of processing. Farmers prefer manual machines as there is no electricity in the area. Their major challenge is the breaking of bearings. I make, repair and modify the machines. My problem is transport. I have to get others to take me and during the rainy season the roads are impassable.

Popcorn maker

I am from Wondedzo near Masvingo and have a maputi gun. The machine is used to roast maize grain to make popcorn, locally called maputi. It is powered by fire from firewood or coal. The machine is locally made by artisans in Masvingo and Mutare. As a relatively new technology, the adoption rate is low, and there are only two machines in our area. But demand for pop corn is very high here and the country at large. A very simple structure is used to house the machine and a single machine is sold at US$179 in Mutare.

Thanks are due to the team in Chikombedzi, Triangle, Masvingo, Gutu, Mvurwi and Matobo and to Felix Murimbarimba for coordinating the work and compiling the huge amount of information and many photos taken by the team, a few of which are included here.

This blog was written by Ian Scoones and first appeared on Zimbabweland

Small-scale mechanisation in Zimbabwean farming: boosting production

Following the introduction to the blog series last week, this blog focus on how small-scale mechanisation is boosting production across our sites. Processes of intensification and commercialisation are driving demand for a variety of forms of mechanisation to assist with tillage, irrigation, seeding and harvesting. This is especially apparent in the A1 resettlement areas where many farmers have been generating surpluses from their farms and are keen on reinvesting. The challenges of availability of labour is a recurrent issue. Being larger, these farms require more labour than can normally be supplied from families, and hired labour is both expensive and unreliable.

Many farmers purchase standard equipment from agrodealers, but increasingly, as noted last week, suppliers of equipment come from local manufacturers, with adaptations designed together with farmers. While much research focuses on classic small-scale mechanisation options – such as two-wheeler tractors – it is the variety that is striking. Across production activities, people are seeking ways to intensify, even if with very low-tech options, such as basic equipment drawn by people.

The result is a range of equipment identified across our sites, with innovations adapting to new situations. The process of mechanisation of production is patchy, and only really getting going now but, unlike the standard pattern expected (tractors and higher-tech equipment), we see a pathway of mechanisation that is more suited to the capital, labour and other requirements of small-scale farmers.

This blog offers a series of case studies and multiple photos from our sites to give you a feel of what we have been observing. In the longer term we are keen to incorporate questions into a survey of all households in our sample to see how extensive this process is, who is involved and what sort of equipment is being purchased, invested in and adapted. But that will have to await having some more research resources. For the time being, this is just a taster.

Pumps and pipes – the growth of small-scale irrigation

As our research has shown, many people are investing in small scale engines for pumping water for irrigation. The growth of irrigation is striking, a response both the land shortages and climate change. By being able to extend the season and insuring production against drought, irrigation is an increasingly important livelihood strategy. This is important especially for land-poor younger people and women with good links to horticultural markets. The price of low cost pumps and poly-pipes is such that most people can invest in the basic equipment.

Leonard Mayengwa (pictured above) is one such irrigation farmer, although in his case he doesn’t have to pump, just draw water from standing water sources in two dams. He is in his late thirties and has specialised in potato farming at Stockbury farm in Mvurwi, Mazowe district. As he explains, “My piece of land is located between two dams. But due to lack of finances I was not able to buy pumps and fuel for pumping water into my field. With the limited funds I had, my first step was to buy poly pipes for syphoning water from one of the local agrodealers in Mvurwi. I get water from one of the dams as there’s a good gradient for the method”. He has perforated the pipes so that water is delivered accurately to the crop, and because poly pipes are flexible and light they can be moved about. Unlike fixed aluminium pipes, which are too often stolen, it’s a much easier more low-cost options. “It’s great”, he exclaims, “no fuel is used and it’s  just using pipes”.

Tillage challenges – 2-wheel tractor

With the loss of cattle due to drought and the effects of ‘January disease’ many people do not have enough draft power for ploughing. Many across our study sites fail to hire draft animals or gain access through sharing, so must seek out tillage services from those with tractors. This is expensive, due to the escalating cost of fuel. And because there are not enough tractors in the area, you have to wait in line and often the tractor comes late, seriously affecting the crop. The experience of collective arrangements for use of tractors has not been positive, and so most people suffer tillage challenges, especially in the resettlement areas where farmers are planting up to 5 hectares of arable land.

It is for all these reasons that there has been much excitement – and expectation – around two-wheeler tractors, which are now being imported from China and are locally assembled and serviced by a number of dealers. Two-wheel tractors have been important in countries where steep slopes and marginal land makes conventional tractors impossible, whether Nepal or Ethiopia. But they haven’t made a big impact in Zimbabwe yet, despite lots of research showing their efficacy, even if the economics of adoption is sometimes questioned. We didn’t find many farmers in our sample using two wheel tractors, but Mr Marturure from Chatsworth area was an exception.

“I am from Zimuto Chirina area boundary of Chatsworth ward 32, and am now settled in the old farms. In 2021, I lost all of my draft power stock. With the support of a family member, I bought a small tractor from China in Harare. It’s easy to use. The only problem is with my age. I am 62 years old and sometimes I find it is difficult to control holding the handles and move furrow by furrow. I can however adjust the speed to suit my walking pace.” Due to these challenges he decided to employ two younger men. He explained “I don’t have any problem of paying them to work as the tractor pays me a living as well as my workers. My clients are from all over Zimuto and Chatsworth resettlement areas. For the meantime I don’t have any competitors hence demand is high. To be honest, I can’t serve all my clients”.

He has a charging structure for his services, with delivery within five kilometres being free and 20c-50c per kilometre for further afield. One hectare of land needs about  US$50 and 20 litres of diesel. He explains, “Most farmers prefer to use this small tractor compared to bigger ones as they say most drivers [of normal tractors] don’t know how to adjust the ploughing depth, but with mine the depth is of an ox-drawn plough.” He is encouraging fellow farmers to purchase this machine even if they have livestock. “If you plough with the small tractor, you save your stock and you are going to sell them at a high market price. You can even buy new stock from the money generated from it.” He says that “if things goes on well, by 2024 I wish to have another machine. What you need is to maintain your machine before breakdown, then there is good business.”

Cultivation innovations: improvised ridger

In our recent studies, we have observed many examples of innovations that start with a well known piece of farm equipment but then adapt it. In this case Gerald Nyabote from Chatsworth Estate farm in Gutu district developed an improvised ridger.

“Poverty and shortage of farm equipment makes me to think outside the box. I am settled on Chatsworth Estate farm in ward 32 of Gutu district. In 2021 my only son moved to South Africa for greener pastures. I was left  here just with my wife, my cousin and my daughter. That year I managed to weed only a small piece of land from the two hectares planted. I have only my plough, but I learned from other farmers that you can use your plough to do different things on the plot. You can remove mouldboard and place a worn-out share instead of a new share. This can be used as a ridger. For making a planting line you can adjust the depth suitable for the crop you wish to plant. This ridger can be also used as a cultivator for weeding – you plough twice on the same furrow. The furrows are important because, when rainfall is not adequate, it’s easy to construct tied-ridges. I can weed about half a hectare per day using my improvised ridger. With the little capital I have I can now pay for my daughter’s school fees and examination fee, and for me labour is now minimised.”

Labour saving – seeders

Pfumvudza is a widespread programme of low till farming using hoe cultivation of small planting pits (see picture below). The pits concentrate water and fertility to boost production. The approach is heavily promoted by government and many NGOs who supply technical advice on how to construct the pits, as well as providing seed and fertiliser. However, the standard system is very labour-intensive, and is usually only feasible on a small plot. While people appreciate the approach in principle, many refer to the approach as ‘dig and die’, highlighting the hard work involved. Many have innovated around the approach, using ox-drawn ploughs, for example, to create furrows before pits are dug. A new design for a hoe was developed by a student at St James Zongoro High School in Mutasa who recognised the challenge of both digging the pits with a hoe and then, in a subsequent operation, coming to plant the seed. He designed a hoe with a hollow handle that can hold a supply of seeds, and then attached a trigger mechanism to release the seed once the pit is dug. With this hoe design cultivation and seeding can be done in one go.

In Wondedzo area, near Masvingo, farmers are making use of a newly designed human-drawn planter. One person pulls the planter, while another guides it from behind. It allows for combining the operations of seeding, fertiliser application and then covering with soil. The planter is made by a local manufacturer based in Mucheke township area of Masvingo. It’s being tested out in Wondedzo, but a number of farmers are interested in it, as it reduces labour and makes operations more efficient.

Neither of these examples are of course ‘mechanisation’ in the conventional sense, as both involve human power, but both involve increasing the efficiency of human labour operations in important ways.

Harvesting tobacco

Tobacco farming has really taken off in the small-holder areas in the past decade or so. It is very labour intensive and this puts a lot of people off. However innovations around various stages of tobacco production from seedling production to harvesting and curing have been occurring for small-scale operations. Most previous innovations were designed for large-scale commercial production that dominated before land reform. In the absence of existing technologies or a formal R and D capacity. there has been a need for innovation around tobacco production for a smallholder cropping system. This case study of farmer-led innovation is focused on harvesting.

“I started growing tobacco since 1992 at Chivhu under my father’s support and supervision. By then I was still at school. With the land reform in 2000, I moved from Chivhu to Chatsworth new resettled farms. I now live at Bath farm ward 32. ”From 2019, I have been growing tobacco. Many said it’s too much work, requiring too much labour.  I have managed to convince some nearby farmers to grow tobacco and so early in 2020 we got a company that contracts us. Its name is Aqua tobacco. In 2021, I was give inputs for 2 hectares. Together with my group members, we thought of a better plan of how we can reap our tobacco without too much handling. This will help boost profits and reduce labour costs. We designed our reaping machine that year. We call it a Cat machine or Chigoropingo, which is the Shona name. It is a simple machine with a plough wheel in front and with steel bars that you lift up and then you tie it to your waist. When it is full you just push it to the grading shed, with the tobacco tied in a bale. Labour is now minimised compared to the past, and now about 10 of us have these Cat machines. Since 2019, I have I managed to build my four-roomed house and now I have eight livestock, even though I lost some through January disease. Me and my family are doing well! This season in 2023 I have already have a nursery bed for two hectares, which has germinated.”

Intensification of poultry production

Small-scale poultry production has really taken off across our sites. As our discussions of the hidden middle showed, this has generated significant economic activity and employment. One route to this is the increasing intensification of production at the local level, moving away from the reliance on the larger operators for supply of day-old chicks for commercial operations. This is why there has been a growing demand for incubation equipment. In this case, a relatively sophisticated machine was purchased by Mr Mutanda who now operates a business for hatching chicks, focusing on indigenous and hybrid breeds (the classic broilers are still dominated by the big companies). Chicks are supplied across the area and some producers hire space in it for hatching their own eggs.

These examples offer some glimpses of how various technologies – externally designed and purchased as well as locally-made and designed – are transforming production systems for some farmers across a range of functions, as well as generating employment and income for those who are manufacturing and services these new forms of agricultural equipment. Next week we will look at how this process of mechanisation is affecting agricultural processing.

Thanks are due to the team in Chikombedzi, Triangle, Masvingo, Gutu, Mvurwi and Matobo and to Felix Murimbarimba for coordinating the work and compiling the huge amount of information and many photos taken by the team, a few of which are included here.

This blog was written by Ian Scoones and first appeared on Zimbabweland

Small-scale agricultural mechanisation is taking off in Zimbabwe

A couple of weeks ago, the FAO hosted a massive gathering on ‘Sustainable agricultural mechanisation’, with the tag line efficiency, inclusivity, resilience. There were about 8000 delegates at the hybrid event and the FAO gave it a high profile. Agricultural mechanisation is back after a long hiatus. But the question remains, what type of mechanisation for whom?

At the exhibition linked to the conference in Rome, manufacturers from across the world displayed their wares. The emphasis was on high-tech solutions for ‘precision’, ‘smart’ agriculture that were going to boost production efficiency. Robots, drones, satellite-based applications and artificial intelligence supported machines were all advertised in the FAO pitch.

But are these the styles of mechanisation that small-scale farmers in Zimbabwe want? Probably not. This blog kicks off a short series on what we have been finding out across our sites. Clearly there is a growing demand for mechanisation – for production, processing, transport and more – but the technologies need to be appropriate in scale, capital requirements and the ability to repair when they go wrong.

Agricultural mechanisation: the allure of the big machine

Mechanisation was all the rage in agricultural development policy several decades ago. New machines for tillage, cultivation, processing and so on were going to address labour shortages, boost productivity and generate income. Big programmes were set up and departments in ministries of agriculture established, many – including in Zimbabwe – still operating.  Large, expensive, two-axle tractors were often at the centre of these efforts.

Zimbabwe, like many countries, has been seduced by the narrative of tractorisation over many decades, but as much research has discovered – from the early post-Independence support of tractors through the District Development Fund (studied by Jo Rusike for his Masters’ thesis back in 1988) to the more recent More Food Africa tractors from Brazil – the story has not been all positive. Tractors are expensive, difficult to maintain and for small farms really don’t make sense, while the collective arrangements for shared use don’t always work. That said, in the post-land reform resettlement areas where farm sizes are larger, there remains a big demand, especially as cattle populations have declined due to drought, disease and so on.

This blog series however doesn’t focus on the shiny new technologies being promoted by the FAO exhibition, nor get into the old tractor debate (see earlier blogs here and here for some commentary), but on the less obvious, but perhaps more important set of innovations that farmers are making use of these days.

Alternative styles of mechanisation: more hidden, less flashy

In the last decade or so there has been for example a massive expansion of small plot irrigation, requiring a mix of pumps, pipes and increasingly solar electricity generation. This is the case especially in the land reform areas where the opportunities to invest are higher. These modular units are cheap, flexible and can be scaled up when farmers get enough profit to warrant it. There are few barriers to getting started, meaning that nearly everyone can buy a small Chinese-made irrigation pump and start growing vegetables. This has been vitally important for young people without significant land as they carve out a living in the resettlement areas.

The way irrigation equipment is deployed is incredibly varied, with interesting adaptations to allow for water storage, focused irrigation delivery and the moving of pipes between different plots to allow irrigation water to be delivered accurately and efficiently. This is in some ways the ‘precision’ agriculture celebrated by the FAO, but without the need for robots, satellites or AI.

The scale of innovation across a diversity of forms of mechanisation surprised us as we dug into what was going on in each of our sites. We had seen more machines being used – beyond the old standards such as grinding mills – but the extent of their use and interestingly their adaptation to local circumstances was striking.

In debates about mechanisation, some claim that new forms of machinery can be labour displacing, resulting in the squeezing out of smaller operators and farm labour. Mechanisation is therefore a route to farm consolidation and so commercialisation. However, this narrative doesn’t chime with the realities on the ground as CIMMYT- led research found in Zimbabwe and elsewhere. Small-scale operations are often the most efficient and may have crucial deficits in labour and other forms of power. Mechanisation in such settings rarely results in the wholesale displacement of one type of farm power (human labour) with another (machines); instead, mechanisation is used selectively to relieve particular bottlenecks and so boost efficiency, but without major displacement of labour.

This is a similar story that researchers have found in the middle hills of Nepal where a massive expansion of small-scale engines linked to pumps, threshers, shellers and tractors has allowed farmers to stay on the land, improve production and do so at reasonable cost. The same goes for Bangladesh where machines are used across many, many small land parcels and are scale-appropriate, whether two-wheeled tractors or small-scale transport.

Participatory design and manufacture

The arrival of locally manufactured and co-designed machinery in farming areas can instead generate employment. In the workshops and garages in our study area, there are many people generating incomes from making everything from wheelbarrows to scotch carts to ploughs and cultivators.

No longer do people rely on the standard manufacturers bought from the agro-dealers in the big towns at a price. Instead, the entrepreneurs working in workshops in small townships in the rural areas or on the farms themselves are copying existing designs and manufacturing them at a much lower cost.

They are also adapting these standard formats in discussion with farmers – there is now massive variation in a standard cultivator, mouldboard plough or thresher, for example, as different elements are added to improve the machine’s use. In the subsequent blogs we will look at some examples of this flourishing innovation.

Principles for agricultural mechanisation

What are the principles at the centre of the processes of mechanisation that we see in rural Zimbabwe?

These are low tech, low cost designs that can be manufactured locally with local expertise, materials and equipment. The engineering is ‘good enough’, not top quality, and machines can be replaced easily or repaired. They can work together with other purchased equipment – such as cheap engines or solar panels/pumps imported from China or elsewhere – and can be deployed in a modular way so as to be flexible and adaptive. The equipment can be repaired locally and adapted easily, through some simple welding for example, changing the design incrementally.

Crucially, the process of innovation is interactive, with farmers being very much part of discussions on design, then testing out prototypes and adapting to local circumstances. This is a participatory style of design, engineering and manufacture suited to the context, and very much located in the rural areas, rather than some remote engineering firm as before.

At the FAO event, participants were asking what is ‘sustainable mechanisation?’ The answer probably lies in the practices seen in Zimbabwe’s rural areas rather than the flash, expensive equipment being displayed in the Rome exhibition: in what some call ‘appropriate mechanisation’. In the next few weeks, we will share some examples in three key areas where mechanisation is becoming increasingly important – production, processing and transport – before concluding with some reflections on scaling up such processes through policy support.     

Thanks to Steve Biggs for sharing some his work with Scott Justice, David Lewis and others (linked above), including an excellent paper on “Rural and Agricultural Mechanization in the Himalayan Rural Economy: The Spread of Small Engines in the Nepal Mid-Hills”. Also thanks are due to Frédéric Baudron who shared the findings of the ACIAR-funded FACASI project (Farm Mechanization & Conservation Agriculture for Sustainable Intensification) and many linked publications. This much more in-depth work from elsewhere in Africa and across Asia gave us confidence that what we were observing in our sites is a much wider phenomenon worthy of further study and policy attention. And of course thanks to the team in Mvurwi, Matobo, Masvingo, Gutu and Chikombedzi for documenting what is going on and sending the photos that appear in the blog.

This blog was written by Ian Scoones and first appeared on Zimbabweland

The Sustainable Development Goals: A missed opportunity

The SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) are at their mid-point of implementation to 2030. Some are claiming there are reasons to be ‘hopeful’, but I am not. I was back in 2015 when they were launched, as they seemed a real opportunity to address transformations to sustainability across sectors, breaking down siloes. As many warned at the time, this hasn’t happened. The SDGs sadly have become a vehicle for mobilising funds for particular pet projects and the transformative, political potential has all but been lost.

As governments convene today and tomorrow at the UN General Assembly to review progress, the UN is downbeat. In its draft statement, the High Level Political Forum notes that:

The achievement of the SDGs is in peril. At the midpoint of the 2030 Agenda, we are alarmed that only 12 per cent of the SDGs are on track and 30 per cent remain unchanged or below the 2015 baseline. The progress on most of the SDGs is either moving much too slowly or has regressed. Our world is currently facing numerous crises. Years of sustainable development gains are being reversed. Millions of people have fallen into poverty, hunger and malnutrition are becoming more prevalent, and the impacts of climate change more pronounced. This has led to increased inequality underpinned by weakened international solidarity and a shortfall of trust to jointly overcome these crises.

Why is this? Just as the MDGs before, the SDGs have  become focused on ‘development’ issues in the global south. The universal ambitions have not been reached and northern countries, including the UK, have been lacklustre in their response, showing no leadership. With the world’s political axes reconfiguring, looking to China, India, Brazil (and the expanded BRICS bloc) must be a priority, but they don’t see the SDGs as ‘theirs’, more a liberal intervention from the West, with ‘high impact initiatives’ being the new flagship . And what has been offered has been a menu of technological solutionism that does nothing to address the underlying political dynamics that cause the problems in the first place.

Zimbabwe I am sure will be there, along with many African countries, but as the recent election showed Western development priorities are not the only game in town. New configurations are emerging and the SDGs, and the focus of the SDGs may soon be seen as last year’s (or decade’s) thing, outdated before even completed.

This is a shame, but it is witness to the failure of the UN to move with the times and seek a truly cross-sectoral, radical transformation towards sustainability, not just a catalogue of interventions across 17 goals and 169 indicators. Sadly the feared default mode of international bureaucratic and political systems has emerged, and the opportunity that was clearly there in 2015 has not been grasped.

You can read some of my (changing) views on the SDGs (and the MDGs) in the following blogs, plus commentary from the STEPS Centre since 2015. Plus an open access book and a couple of academic articles on what a ‘transformative’ approach might look like

2019: Realising the SDGs: why a sustainable livelihoods approach can help – Institute of Development Studies (ids.ac.uk)

2019: The SDGs: A new politics of transformation? – Institute of Development Studies (ids.ac.uk)

2015: Will the Sustainable Development Goals Make a Difference? | HuffPost UK News (huffingtonpost.co.uk)

A collection from the STEPS Centre: Reshaping development goals – STEPS Centre (steps-centre.org)

Article: Transformations to sustainability: combining structural, systemic and enabling approaches

Book: The Politics of Green Transformation

Article: Transforming Innovation for Sustainability

This blog was written by Ian Scoones and first appeared on Zimbabweland

Zimbabwe’s disputed election: why resource politics matter

Here we go again…. Zimbabwe has a disputed election, with all sorts of deeply damaging uncertainties that will follow, perhaps for years.

The final results were announced late at night on 26 August, with Emerson Mnangagwa declared the winner of the presidential poll with 52.6% of the vote, and Nelson Chamisa coming second with 44%. The parliamentary results had already been announced, with ZANU-PF winning 136 seats and the CCC winning 73, importantly denying ZANU-PF a two-thirds majority. The presidential inauguration is happening today.

Disputed elections in Zimbabwe have been a regular occurrence. But this one was chaotic in the extreme, with the Zimbabwe Election Commission not coming off well. There was a catalogue of complaints from questions about the voters’ roll, gerrymandering of constituency boundaries, media bias, misleading advertising, inequities in election funding, late delivery of ballot papers in opposition strongholds, intimidation of voters, the placement of exit poll desks by ruling party-allied groups. The list goes on. International press reports (see here, here, here and here) comment extensively on the irregularities.

The opposition claims that the vote was rigged and that the presidential election was ‘stolen’, while they (slightly strangely) seem to accept the parliamentary results. Proof of rigging requires the cross-checking of the infamous V11 forms, but these have not yet all been provided. Disputing the numbers is one strategy, but without full evidence goes nowhere as the CCC seem to have judged as no Constitutional Court case has been proposed. Instead, along with many commentators, the international observer teams commented mostly on the conduct and alleged illegitimacy of the overall vote (see here, here, here and here).

All observer teams in their initial reports had a broadly similar view and crucially the normally supportive SADC and AU teams were highly critical, with these positions being echoed by local election monitoring groups. This leaves the election result hanging, and everyone awaits the final reports. Without regional and international acceptance of the result it will be difficult to govern effectively.

A divided nation

The announced results of course were not very different to what everyone expected, including many of those in the opposition, and were certainly broadly in line with earlier polling. ZANU-PF won in the rural areas outside Matabeleland North and parts of Manicaland, while the CCC won in the urban centres, including claiming all the 12 Bulawayo seats, as their candidates there had been reinstated following a court dispute over registration. ZANU-PF remains a rural (mostly Mashonaland) party and people will continue to vote for it, partly because amongst the councillors and MPs there are some very committed candidates chosen through effective primary elections.

Questions of land, agriculture and rural development are the top priorities, themes that the opposition has historically been poor at engaging with. Even if the main parties’ policies are quite similar, as discussed in the last blog, many don’t trust the opposition on issues of land given their track-record. In the numerous discussions on the election that I have seen on social media, online and in the newspapers, this key rural dimension is barely discussed. Land and resources matter – and, as someone put it succinctly, it was the peasants and the squatters who won.

However, amongst these quite predictable patterns, there were some surprises. The finance minister, Mthuli Ncube didn’t get a seat in Bulawayo, for example, and various other ZANU-PF big-wigs who had pumped money into their campaigns lost. Votes were split in some areas with multiple opposition candidates competing, and some of these were apparently stooge candidates aiming to do just this.

But overall, despite the disputed process of candidate selection and organisation without structures that the opposition followed under the banner of ‘strategic ambiguity’, the CCC did remarkably well. And this despite the uphill struggle of organised state hostility, not being the incumbent and with no significant funds. The number of seats gained increased from the 2018 election and the presidential result was very respectable, even though some key former MPs, notably Tendai Biti, never got selected by the party and so will sadly not be in parliament.

We will have to wait to see if any other court challenges are made, what observer groups say in their final reports and what behind-the-scenes pressures are applied by regional leaders, but what is clear is that many are unhappy with the result. Once again Zimbabwe is split in two – rural and urban, to some extent older and younger, and increasingly ethnically divided. This is far from healthy and hopefully compromises will be made to bring different sides together, even if a formal national unity government is unlikely.

Alliances and alignments

A key choice for ZANU-PF will be whether it rides out the storm or makes concessions in the spirit of compromise and in order to create stability. Much will depend on how the political (and military) elite in ZANU-PF judges the importance of allying with the West and seeing an end to sanctions and a debt deal or whether they simply don’t care.

Some argue that the form of corrupt extractive politics that dominates Zimbabwe – led by the ‘comprador bourgeoisie’ as Ibbo Mandaza calls them – means that being in power is enough so that resource looting can continue. As long as there are other allies and sources of international capital who can back them, notably the Chinese, Russians, Iranians, and of course the ANC as the other ‘liberation’ party in the region, then the status quo can continue.

This bigger picture matters, as alliances and political alignments are crucial – and importantly are rapidly shifting. Coincidently the Zimbabwe election happened at the same time as the BRICS summit was held in Johannesburg, when new members were admitted (including Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Argentina). Strong statements about a new alignment of political and economic forces were made, suggesting (perhaps rather hopefully at this stage) that the bloc was a new force to take on the West and challenge the hegemony of the US dollar.

While Zimbabwe is a small and insignificant player in this international scene, there are links between the two events as Zimbabwe contemplates another potentially prolonged period of political and economic instability. The sanctions that have crippled the economy over the past 20 years (along with economic incompetence and rampant corruption of course) are unlikely to be lifted if the international consensus remains that the election was illegitimate.

Many of the complaints levelled at the Zimbabwe election are of course the same as in many other parts of the world (including of course the US and Europe, as well as other parts of Africa), but such double standards do not matter when Zimbabwe is being judged against strict ‘good governance’ criteria, with the West setting the terms.

The gloss that President Mnangagwa acquired following the ‘coup’ in 2017 (perhaps somewhat naively promoted by some Western diplomats) has long gone. He will have to work much harder to regain commitments from the doubters in the West, and the conduct of this shambolic election certainly has not helped. Maybe he judges it doesn’t matter if the investors from elsewhere can come to the rescue.

Resource politics

This is where the politics of resources comes in. Zimbabwe is rich in minerals and has good agricultural land. Cecil Rhodes knew this, and so do the Chinese, Russians and others. The expose by the Al Jazeera documentary, The Gold Mafia, laid bare the way mineral wealth is appropriated and exported through a complex web of players, with strong political connections. This is a way of avoiding sanctions, while ensuring the amassing of vast private wealth. Lithium is another crucial resource, as global demand sky-rockets. Already the Chinese dominate lithium mining in Zimbabwe, making it the biggest supplier in Africa of a metal that is crucial for batteries and the global energy transition. With six mines operational in Zimbabwe, the Chinese are becoming the world lithium leader and the US are nowhere to be seen.

But a reliance on Chinese (as well as other non-Western) investment is insufficient, as the terms do not result in significant benefits locally, even if key players in the ‘comprador’ elite make a mint. Relying on such investment for national regeneration would be a naïve punt, and one that has not paid off so far ever since President Mugabe’s hopeful ‘Look East’ policies.

Struggles over resources – for mining and agriculture in particular – will become central to the way the next steps play out, whoever the Zimbabwean state allies with. Land issues will therefore be key, just as they were in Cecil Rhodes’ day. We can expect more land grabs for mining investments and more calls for joint ventures and large-scale farming as part of any attempts to create an economic revival under continued difficult circumstances.

Will these continue to be Chinese, Indian, Russian maybe Iranian, or will the West return to the fold? In a bankrupt economy and one in desperate need of investment, as ever resource politics are never far away in Zimbabwe.

This blog was written by Ian Scoones and first appeared on Zimbabweland

Zimbabwe’s election: what are the parties saying about land, agriculture and rural development?

At last one of the major parties contesting Zimbabwe’s election on August 23 has produced a manifesto – in this case the Citizens’ Coalition for Change (CCC), which was launched last week. ZANU-PF remain without one, claiming that they are running on their record. Other parties have produced them, including ZAPU, but two are no longer relevant, as the Douglas Mwonzora and the MDC-T dropped out and Saviour Kasukuwere was disqualified by the courts.

Right now there are ten presidential candidates, but in the end only two matter – Emerson Mnangagwa of ZANU-PF, the ruling party that has been in power for 43 years, and Nelson Chamisa, the head of the new party, the CCC, which emerged from the Movement for Democratic Change that was led for so long by the late Morgan Tsvangirai.

Rather than commenting on the endless intrigues and the faction fighting within the parties, on which you can spend days on social media if you like (and be none the wiser), for this blog I will concentrate on the substantive policies around land, agriculture and rural development that each of the parties offer. In terms of policy debate, this election has been rather disappointing to say the least, with so much airtime being taken up by many court cases contesting the validity of candidates, when candidates registered and so on. There are a lot of lawyers in the political class in Zimbabwe and electoral democracy has become highly litigious, not necessarily resulting in a better process given the state of the judicial system in the country.

Avoiding all these shenanigans and following the tradition of this blog established for the elections between 2013 and 2018 (see blogs here, here, here and here), I have had a look at the policy promises made by the two main parties.

ZANU-PF’s mixed track record

As already noted, ZANU-PF have not produced a manifesto at all, so we have to take them at their word and look at their record and assume that this is the basis on which they are contesting.

Luckily the very well respected and independent think-tank Sivio has produced one of its ‘record card’ assessments of the track record of the current government across a range of areas. In many, the record is poor – including in areas where there has been much critique, including most notably overall governance, but in agriculture Sivio gives the government a surprisingly positive grade, with 28 of 32 promises kept (although only 3 were fully implemented) and an overall mark of 74%. This is on the basis of a range of subsidy schemes, some investment in infrastructure (notably irrigation and an acceleration of dam construction) and good harvests (of course helped by good rainfall seasons recently).

So, if elected, we assume that they will stick with their current approach, encouraging external investment in the sector, including via joint ventures; subsidising key crops (such as wheat) and certain farmers (through the various schemes – the Presidential inputs support, pfumvudza, command agriculture and so on) and continuing with the (very slow) land registration process and the issuing of leases for the A2 farms. The agreement of a compensation deal for the white farmers who lost their land in the land reform is seen as a big policy achievement of the past government, and presumably we can expect this to remain a priority, with African Development Bank-led negotiations around wider government debt (now totalling $17.5 billion) potentially encompassing the huge sums ($3.5 billion) committed as part of the compensation deal.

Much of course will depend on whether a new ZANU-PF government can convince the ‘international community’ that they (this time) really do mean business, and that sanctions/restrictive measures are then reduced, debt cleared and investment then flows. There will be much scepticism given the poor track record of the government since the coup in 2017 when so much more was expected. The failures of the current government on many fronts – most notably on the economy, and so jobs – is a focus of much commentary, and it is no surprise that a large majority think that the country needs to change, even if according to Afrobarometer ZANU-PF were ahead in the polls at least a month or so ago  – presumably because the rural voters appreciate some of the ruling party’s policies and respect their local candidates who emerge through often hard-fought primary elections, while on-going scepticism about the electoral process and voter intimidation dissuade rural people from backing an alternative (at least in public).

Citizens’ change ahead?

The opposition led by Nelson Chamisa defines itself around change, and the CCC manifesto is all about rebuilding Zimbabwe – with large doses of Christianity thrown in for good measure. God is supposedly on their side and at the manifesto launch, Chamisa committed to “rededicate Zimbabwe to God”. Chamisa’s bizarre policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’ confused many and resulted in much discontent internally, but the manifesto (coming very late in the campaign and held up by internal wrangling) is full of important specifics, including a five point plan and 20 actions for the first 100 days, together with lots of detail on a whole array of policy areas across 100 pages.

It replicates much that was in the MDC Alliance’s last manifesto, and indeed overlaps considerably with many of ZANU-PF’s commitments and in fact on-going projects. The photo editor may well be the same as in 2018 too, with a distinct proclivity to choose stock photos from around the world depicting a high tech modern future for Zimbabwe modelled on Spain, the US and elsewhere, with multi-lane motorways, high-speed trains, fancy medical equipment and (bizarrely) a rural landscape that looks like New England in the fall.

There is quite a lot of detail about modernising the agriculture sector, including a focus on ‘precision agriculture’, value addition, agro-processing, irrigation and so on (pp. 52-55). And even seemingly as an afterthought there is a mention of climate change and the environment (p. 95). There are also some good sections on the importance of decentralised approaches to economic development and supporting rural growth linkages through the MATURA plan (much as we have been banging on about for years). And, as with all parties, there is a declaration that the land reform is irreversible, although the CCC manifesto repeats the tired rhetoric about the ‘chaotic’ land reform destroying the sector and the inaccurate claim that the country has been in continuous food deficit. But the CCC manifesto also makes the case that there is an urgent need to focus on land governance and administration. It argues for the need to address multiple farm ownership, stop elite grabbing, corruption and patronage and so on, removing land from the political matrix of patronage and party control and towards an effective administration system. All good stuff, aligning very much with what has been argued on this blog over years.

However, as in previous manifestos, the opposition party seems obsessed with giving people freehold title to their land (this time only to resettlement areas, whereas communal areas will get transferrable permits to occupy, but also seemingly a land reorganisation separating village and field areas, with echoes of the notorious 1951 Land Husbandry Act). Maybe it’s the number of lawyers involved but, as argued on this blog many times before, this freehold title obsession may be a diversion, and will almost certainly be unimplementable.

The big question for the CCC (as with ZANU-PF) is how all these promises will be paid for and how a more stable economy will emerge given years in the doldrums, shunned by international players, let alone valued at US$100 billion. It will take more than a quick phone call to President Biden, I fear.

A modernising zeal, but with what resources?

In the end, beyond some different emphases, the positions of the current government and the opposition on land, agriculture and rural development are not hugely different. Both proclaim the need to modernise, to invest in technology, to upgrade infrastructure, pay fair prices to farmers and so on, but how this will be done with what resources remains the big question. Whoever takes over after these elections the big issue will be the mounting debt, the fragile currency and the lack of resources in the exchequer.

In the end the capacity to implement any of the policies laid out in manifestos and speeches with multiple promises will depend on the politics of reengagement with international finance either public or private. And in turn it will mean dealing with the currency situation and so inflation (presumably once again accept the de facto reality and adopting the US dollar formally), and in parallel addressing the ballooning debt obligations (now with high global interest rates), owed to the international finance institutions as well as the Chinese.

All this will be a massive challenge for any incoming administration and will not easily be solved whoever becomes president and whichever party gains the most seats in parliament. The challenges of land, agriculture and rural development will likely persist and will require more detailed policies appropriate to local needs and aligned with resource availability, rather than the grand handwaving and promises that cannot be fulfilled that we see in every election (and not just in Zimbabwe of course).

We can only hope that the election and its aftermath will remain peaceful and that an incoming government will engage with debates on the ground and with empirical research evidence and so will enlist researchers and others in trying to address the many challenging issues in Zimbabwe’s rural areas.

Catch up on Zimbabweland – top blogs so far this year

The blog is taking a break for a few weeks as holidays and book-writing deadlines beckon. But there’s plenty to catch up on if you haven’t already. Here’s a list of the ‘top 10’ most viewed posts of 2023 (so far) that have been published during the year.

1 Conversations on Zimbabwe’s land reform: “well, it’s a bit more complex than that….”

2 Livestock populations decimated by ‘January disease’ in Zimbabwe: diverse local responses

3 Negotiating ‘belonging’ in Zimbabwe’s land reform areas

4 Preparing for the next pandemic: lessons from Zimbabwe

5 The ‘hidden middle’: the transformation of agri-food systems in Africa

6 Maize markets in Zimbabwe: a complex web of hidden activity

7 Robin Palmer – the original land campaigner and scholar activist

8 Livelihoods analysis and agrarian political economy: a new podcast

9 Zimbabwe’s resettlement experience from 1980 to 2000

10 Why livestock keeping can be good for the environment

There’s of course plenty more. There have been 22 blogs published so far this year, and 490 in total since the blog started in 2011.

This year there have been a number of blog series, notably on ‘the hidden middle‘ – the array of informal economic activity associated with agricultural production – focusing on maize, poultry and horticulture. Older series, notably the ones on urban agriculture and agricultural entrepreneurs continue to attract a significant readership.

Our book compiling our pandemic blogs – Learning in a Pandemic: Reflections on COVID-19 in Rural Zimbabwe – came out at the end of last year, but continues to be of interest to many readers interested in reflecting on the pandemic experience from a rural perspective. You can buy the full-colour book on Amazon (£12.72 for a paper copy, £1.25 for a Kindle version) or download it for free in high- or low-resolution versions here and here). Check out the blog summarising the work and a couple of articles that have emerged here.

You can join over 800 subscribers to the blog by signing up on this page (to the right =>) or follow me on Twitter (or whatever it is called now) @ianscoones to keep up-to-date with our work on land, agriculture and rural development in Zimbabwe.

As regular readers will know, Zimbabweland is very much a collective enterprise, with each post including contributions from the team in Zimbabwe led by my long-term collaborator Felix Murimbarimba (we worked out that, rather amazingly, we’ve been working together for 35 years this year), even if I write and compile the blog.

We are working on two new research themes right now – the role of small-scale technologies in agriculture and new approaches to credit and finance in a challenging economy. Results will appear in blogs in due course. We are also hoping to re-start our longitudinal tracking of livelihood change across our sites in the (not so) new land reform areas that started in a number of sites in the early 2000s. In particular, we will be trying to make sense of the ‘phases of land reform’ and their consequences, both positive and negative, drawing comparisons with other experiences of land reform elsewhere in the world. And, as before, based on solid empirical data, grounded in diverse contexts, rather than wild conjecture and misleading assumptions as too often happens. Hopefully, there’ll be some more news on this by the end of the year.

I still hope to offer reflections on election manifestos and policies for land/agriculture and development in advance of the August 23 poll, but so far the Zimbabwe election seems to be almost completely content and policy-free.

Meanwhile, enjoy catching up on the blogs!

Commercialising horticulture in Zimbabwe: some case studies

Last week the blog offered an overview of horticulture growing across our research sites in Zimbabwe. The blog emphasised the importance of a ‘hidden middle’ connecting growers to a range of other activities, all generating employment.

This blog focuses on a number of case studies of producers distinguishing the more commercial growers from those who are developing a business by specialising in particular products, those who are operating as contract farmers and those who are aspiring producers, not yet able to invest in expanding to a more commercial operation. The cases are accompanied by a series of photographs taken over the past weeks, highlighting the diversity of operations.

As noted last week, horticulture is an important dimension of diversification of farming across our sites, facilitated by growing demand and the investment in small-scale irrigation. These producers are supported by local labour, both permanent and temporary, transporters who ferry produce to markets and various forms of financing, including investment from off-farm jobs, diaspora linked contracts for purchasing vegetables and contract growing of particular crops.

The commercial growers

There are an increasing number of commercial growers of vegetables across our sites. These are mostly men who have reduced their focus on dryland maize production and have invested in horticulture. Most have a pump based irrigation system (increasingly relying on a solar pump) and many have their own transport. They have developed good relationships with particular markets, including supermarkets and in one case diaspora buyers linked by mobile money transfers. While they concentrate on the dominant horticultural crops – notably tomatoes, cabbages and green leaf vegetables – they produce at scale and can guarantee sales through good market networks. All employ labour and generate a significant profit, certainly compared to relying on dryland cropping, although market constraints due to lockdowns during the pandemic presented problems for them all.

I am GD from Matobo district. The place lies 74 km from Bulawayo along Kezi Maphisa road. I am a father of two, and I was formerly employed as bank-teller, but now am a vegetable grower. I have ventured into cabbage and tomato production on the back of my successful broiler business. I am assisted by my family and two casual workers. I got a bank loan and bought a solar powered sand abstraction pump. I have a 0.5 hectare plot. I have a good relationship with Savemore supermarket in Maphisa. I make batch sales of cabbages with weekly deliveries using my own truck. For tomatoes, I sell in Bulawayo every Monday morning, delivering 20 crates, with each going for US$10.  My major challenge has been labour. Young men want a fast dollar and they will always flee my farm when the produce needed more attention.  I thought of an idea to give them a stable salary when producing, and then pay them on commission when the produce is reaching the market. This worked wonders and l am able to anticipate good profits. Across the year l have three tomatoes plots staggered to avail the produce all year round. After the US $400 production costs, I get $2000 profits per annum.

I am BK from near Mvurwi. I produce tomatoes all year round. I buy inputs from Agricura, Windmill and Farm and City in Mvurwi town. I make use of a free flow irrigation system, which works throughout the year. I hire tillage and also labour for weeding, trellising, spraying and so on. It’s a labour-intensive activity. I manage to get some pesticide and fungicides from tobacco farmers who get it on contract. I sell my output in Mvurwi and Guruve to local vendors depending on demand. I own a pickup truck, which I use for delivering tomatoes to the market centres.

I have a perennial garden and grow a whole variety of vegetables, plus also sugar cane. I have a reliable well now with a solar pump system. Vendors come from all over to buy from my garden. They all make a good living from selling my vegetables – mostly tomatoes and cabbages. During COVID we suffered a big problem as the police would stop people moving. They would demand permits, vaccination certificates and so on. It was a real problem for my business. Now it is OK again, but I have also diversified and grow sugar cane too, which is not perishable so can be stored. No one grows it nearby and I can get a good price, as it’s sold in the township and at the bus stop. My garden produce is very popular with diaspora people whose families live here. They transfer money electronically and it’s a good deal as it’s quick and efficient and in US dollars. A big problem is elephant damage, but we now have a project to produce chili cakes, which we burn at night. The Gonarezhou park people help us to do this, giving training to farmers. If we don’t elephants can destroy the garden in one night.  

The specialists

The case studies of specialist growers include those focusing on butternut, kale, oranges/grafted trees and water melons. In each case, a particular market has been sought out and the producers gear production towards the market, linking to it via mobile vendors or particular relationships with sellers, including supermarkets. These producers are commercialized, but on a slightly smaller scale. Without significant capitalization they have specialized and know their crop and its market well. All employ labourers and they all are investing in irrigated production. Technical knowledge is gained from a variety of sources, including training courses and support from agricultural extension workers.

I am a young man in a newly resettled farm in Clare in Gutu. I started my project of butternut production in 2020 after a long time of tomato production. I lost my tomatoes to disease, and going to market was a big challenge too, as my tomatoes rotted. This challenge makes me switch into butternut production. I have 0.2ha of butternut ready for marketing right now. I am looking to sell them in Masvingo and Gutu. I am also happy if I sell locally to neighbours and in Chatsworth township. I am expecting a big profit of about US$250-$300 this season. The major constraint is transport to market and the high cost of diesel for my engine pump. I am looking forward to install solar powered system if my produce fetches good prices at the market. Butternut has got more advantages compared to tomatoes. Shelf life; easy to transport to market; less diseases attack hence cost of inputs is minimised especially on chemicals. Also, butternut production has no stiff competition in the market. Last year I experienced cracks on my butternuts caused by cold and also powdery mildew on leaves. But through the help from Agritex staff I managed to overcome the problem. I have one permanent worker but at peak periods I employ more casual workers.

If you want an easy life in newly resettled area the only possible solution is to venture into horticulture production each and every day you get at least US$5-$10 in your pocket.  I am a newly resettled farmer allocated in Hillsbrough farm in Chatsworth area, Gutu. I have a small vegetable garden of about 0.8 ha. My main crop is Covo (Kale). 2021 is the year I started vegetable production project after comparing maize budget and horticulture production budgets with the help of my agricultural extension officer. With the little I get from maize production I managed to buy a 5000 litre tank with a small solar panel to pump water to my reservoir. This was done through the help of my family members and also with support from my councillor. I have about 0.2 ha of Covo, tomatoes, rape and watermelons. To me the market is not a major problem as I am close to the Harare-Masvingo highway. The local leadership helped me to source a market at Rufaro high school. Sometimes I supply Rufaro high with about 500-600kgs of Covo per month but competition there is very stiff. Sometimes the market supply gets flooded, which makes me dry my vegetables and sell them as mufushwa. Furthermore, I also travel as far as Zoma where I sell my produce to gold panners (makorokoza) at a price of US$1 per mug cup. I also sell my vegetables at Mwazha church conference at Chaka. It is about 2.5 kilometres from my garden to their meeting place. They gather there at least three times a year so I make sure I have something on those days. In terms of problems, I have a problem of pests, such as aphids and flies, and the cost of fertilizer is too high. For example, I bought 50 kgs of ammonium nitrate at US$46! I mixed it with compost and animal manure in order to save on cost. I am planning to drill a borehole if things go well next year. I have two workers during the peak period and I hire 2-3 casual workers to help me with harvesting. I am looking forward to expand my garden in the near future.

For some time, I worked in South Africa doing a variety of jobs. I ended up working in a citrus planation. It was like slave labour. I worked hard and earned little, but I did learn how to cultivate oranges and graft trees. I decided to return home and started my own orchard with oranges, lemons, guavas. I sell these at the small-scale farms, to the Zimbabwe Republic Police station, to the workers at the hospital, to rangers at Gonarezhou, at circumcision parties and to local vendors in Chikombedzi township. I also now sell grafted trees and sold 300 this year. I get inputs from cross-border traders who come from South Africa as the price is cheap. It’s good business and now my life is definitely better.

My father worked at Hippo Valley and one time there was a free course on horticulture. I attended and learned a lot. That is where my passion started. It then increased when I worked in South Africa. First as a haulage driver and then later with an agricultural inputs company. I learned about farming, including irrigation there. I decided to return home and set up my project. I bought a 5 HP engine for pumping and started with green maize growing for selling in Chikombedzi township. It was good money, but I decided to switch when I saw the demand for melons. This is my main focus these days. I make a good profit, even in times when rainfall is low. I sell to vendors who come from afar, as well as to government offices and workers in Chikombedzi. I am the biggest supplier in the area and my melons are sold in Chiredzi and as far as Masvingo. Problems include getting fuel for the pump, as we don’t have service stations nearby. The biggest problem is elephants though, so we have to protect our gardens, even at night. I employ labour for weeding and hire tractors for ploughing and opening up irrigation furrows. I pay for all this from my garden’s profit, but also from building projects that I do in the area.

The contract farmer

Contract arrangements are springing up for a variety of horticultural crops with particular markets. In this case, the focus is on chili production, supported by the national park trust, which has linked to an company so that chilies can be made available for making cakes for burning and deterring elephants.

I belong to the Kacholo chili project, which was set up by Gonarezhou National Park. Chillis are used for scaring elephants. We burn them around our farms, and it helps scare the elephants that come from the park. I am contracted to grow 3,000 plants this year.  We get USD 1.75 per kilogramme. It’s not bad money, but the company gets lots of money as the chillis are valued all over the world, and there are lots of export markets, as well as the local use for scaring elephants.

The aspiring gardener

There are many aspiring gardeners who are upgrading a ‘backyard’ type operation. The key to scaling up production is the opportunity to irrigate and to secure labour.

I have a garden that I established with the help of my husband. Sadly, he passed away and I was left alone. I only have a brushwood fence and animals can get into the place. I am also no longer young and work is hard. However I do my best and vendors come and buy vegetables from my garden. They come with donkey carts, cars and so on. I sell to those who cook at the big open-air markets in the area (bacosi). They want vegetables for relish particular for the month-end markets. It’s a good business. I am hoping to raise enough money to buy a pump, but for now I am watering by bucket from the well that was built from money that my late husband had from his temporary teacher job.

This is the last of eight ‘hidden middle’ blogs focusing on maize, poultry and horticulture. We are now working on two more blog series, one on ‘technology’, the other on ‘finance’, again highlighting how innovation is occurring across farming areas, with pathways to agricultural development in Zimbabwe emerging that are not of the ‘textbook’ sort. The blog will be taking a break for a few weeks while this work is completed. As in previous elections (see here for 2018 and for 2013 – also here), I was planning a blog on election manifestos and their positions on agriculture, land and rural development, but a month out from the 2023 election there are it seems still no manifestos out., but watch out for a quick reflection blog if they appear.

Thanks are due to the team in Chikombedzi, Triangle, Masvingo, Gutu, Mvurwi and Matobo and to Felix Murimbarimba for coordinating the work and compiling the huge amount of information and many photos taken by the team, a few of which are included here.

This blog was written by Ian Scoones and first appeared on Zimbabweland

Booming horticulture markets in Zimbabwe: a growing ‘hidden middle’

Everyone seems to be growing vegetables (and fruit) these days. It is big business and the horticulture sector is generating income, jobs and secondary businesses like never before. The ‘hidden middle’ in this value web is thriving.  

In the past, the horticulture sector was divided between the large-scale commercial operations that, through the 1990s, had broken into international markets, selling vegetables and fruits to global markets in short time windows contracted by external buyers. This required high phytosanitary and labour standards, such as through the GlobalGap system. This was lucrative business, but required much skill, lots of investment and very good networks. It was therefore dominated by white, large-scale farmers.

Alongside this business-oriented horticulture was the classic backyard gardening, usually the preserve of women to provide a few veg for relish, but with little expectation of significant sales beyond a few bunches of rape or kale or some tomatoes. Development projects from the 1980s onwards invested lots in ‘women’s gardening projects’ as their favoured livelihood intervention, often on a collective basis with a big diesel pump purchased to irrigate the area. Many of these failed as the cooperatives fell apart and the pumps were too expensive to repair.

All this changed following land reform. The large-scale, commercial horticulture sector took a knock as farms were redistributed, although some have persisted and maintained their markets. Some farmers have even taken up joint ventures on A2 farms and are supplying export markets. Small-scale backyard gardening of course continues, but the big change has been the growth of horticulture farming across the country, particularly in the land reform areas. Plots range from 0.1 ha or less up to several hectares. These are intensive production areas, are usually irrigated and regularly employ multiple people, both permanently and casually.

This growth has been driven by a number of factors, most notably the increasing availability of (mostly) Chinese-built small-scale pumps. This has allowed individuals to invest in irrigated horticulture for as little as US$200, buying a small pump and some piping to get going. Many have upgraded since to larger operations, buying solar equipment to power the pumps and increasing the horsepower of the pumps. Our study of the growth of small-scale irrigation in Masvingo found that across numerous small plots a huge amount was being produced across homestead, aspiring and commercial irrigators. In 2019, one commercial irrigator was securing an income of around US$30,000 from five hectares, with input expenses of US$12,000, and was employing some 20 people. Most aspiring irrigators had more intermediate operations, using a variety of pumping systems with plot sizes averaging 0.43 hectares. Extrapolating from this sample, the total output being generated by land reform areas in the province was huge.

So the new horticulture has intensified (through irrigation), diversified and specialised (into particular crops with secure markets) and commercialised (selling across multiple markets). We have been investigating this phenomenon over the past years (see here, here, here and here) and in recent weeks the team across our sites has conducted research to update this, in particular exploring the ‘hidden middle’ – the array of business activities that have sprung up around the boom in horticultural farming (following on from the earlier blog series on this theme on maize and poultry).  

Multiple markets

These new horticultural entrepreneurs make use of many different types of markets. Our research identified the following: municipal markets (in small towns and growth points, where fees are paid to the local authority); informal bakosi bush markets (occasional markets outside towns in rural areas, often involving hundreds of traders); supermarkets (OK, Pick and Pay and so on, where producers make a link to sell regularly); hotels, restaurants and informal food sellers (where contracts are struck for regular supplies; schools, hospitals, colleges, churches (again where contracts provide a clear market, including around big church events); road-side vendors (of which there are many, who may be the producer or may buy from producers) and mobile markets (often in the back of cars or pickups) that sprung up during the pandemic to avoid the police, but have persisted.

Together these markets make up a huge demand for horticultural produce. But the demand is differentiated. The standard, regular demand for green vegetables (covo/rape), onions and tomatoes is well serviced and sometimes results in gluts due to over-supply, but there is an increasing demand for specialist vegetables – such as butternut squashes and so on. Some crops have high value in wider markets (including export) and contractors may come and make deals with producers. In our sites in Chikombedzi, for example, contracted garlic and chilli growing takes place, while in Mvurwi, linking to major production on Forrester Farm, there are contracts for peas and beans.

Business opportunities

All this activity gives rise to many business opportunities. Most are small, informal businesses, with limited capitalisation, but they all generate employment for people based particularly in small towns near the horticulture production sites. Every small town has a number of new businesses that have emerged directly as a result of linkages with the growth in farm production, particularly after land reform. This is the ‘hidden middle’ of the post-land reform rural economic scenario.

The following activities within this ‘hidden middle’ have been identified during the research (in no particular order):

Transport. Moving perishable crops to markets is essential and the investment in one tonne trucks has been massive. Sometimes farmers buy them to transport their own crops, in other cases transporters ferry crops from a number of farmers. Motorbikes, donkey carts, push carts and every other form of transport are used to ferry crops to markets and collection points in a timely way.

Borehole drilling companies and well digging. While many new horticulture farmers have made use of small dams, ponds and rivers to irrigate from, this is not always possible. Others prefer to have their valuable horticulture produce nearer the home and this means getting new water supplies. Borehole drilling companies have sprung up everywhere. They offer a simple service including a survey and some test drills using a basic rig. If water is found they can drill and install a borehole with a pump. More traditional well diggers (using spades and dynamite) are also always in demand and many, many wells have been dug since land reform to irrigate areas.

Irrigation equipment suppliers. In many towns these days agricultural supplies shop stock basic pumps and plastic piping. These range from the low-cost units that have become so popular to more powerful versions. These days, with the declining costs of solar panels, solar installations for pumping are now available at reasonable costs. A vital bit of equipment, seen gracing so many homes these days, is the JoJo water storage tank. These too are supplied by dealers in most towns.

Artisans. All this new equipment requires servicing and repair. Unlike the stranded pump in the NGO garden project, today there are lots of people who can install, fix equipment as well as service it. Electricians, builders, welders and mechanics are able to set up boreholes, pumps, tanks and so on. Such people also are always in demand for repairing or even building transport equipment, whether cars or trucks or the more traditional donkey cart or push cart. In small towns and even in rural areas, workshops exist with skilled artisans often employing a few people.

Fuel supply. With the expansion of petrol and diesel pumps, there has been growing demand for fuel to keep the pumps going. Decentralised networks of suppliers linked to urban suppliers have sprung up to supply fuel, even in the remotest rural area.

Communications technology and finance. The ubiquitous mobile phone and mobile money payments system is vital for horticultural business. Connecting to a transporter, a contractor, a supermarket or other buyer can be done quickly and efficiently, with payments following. For perishable products, time is of the essence, and the level of connectivity these days makes many things possible that weren’t in the past. Those who sell internet bundles, repair and sell phones or facilitate eco-cash payments are essential to the overall value web.

All those involved in these businesses multiply the value of horticulture for the local economy. These businesses are not formally counted in standard censuses or conventional assessments, but the value web is extensive, complex and informal – and so too often ‘hidden’.

Benefits and challenges

There are many benefits to the growth of horticulture for rural economies and livelihoods. Access to vegetables and fruits is good for health, but sales are vital for rural incomes these days. Employment generation, especially for those without land and occupied in extensive maize or cattle farming for example, is significant through the range of multipliers and linkages we see.

Horticulture is no longer the exclusive domain of women, as men have often shifted from dryland farming to horticulture given the better returns once it is intensified. Young people too are important in the sector, as without large land areas, they are able to make use of smaller patches, either subdivisions on their parents’ land reform farms or (often illegal) plots near rivers and other water sources.

Despite the clear successes, horticulture farming is not without challenges. Climate change has often driven people to take up irrigation, but declining rainfall may result in reductions in both groundwater and open water. Confused and poorly regulated water rights may mean that access to water is challenging if upstream users take it all. Competition for markets and the resulting gluts in some core commodities (notably tomatoes) can be a problem, as over-supply can result in waste. The lack of storage and processing capacities for perishable products also results in loss of income, and there are many potentials for technological and market innovation in this area. Research and development efforts traditionally have not seen much of a focus on horticulture, but varietal research on for example watermelons has seen a massive growth in production. In the same way, work on low-input, low-chemical production systems is needed to manage pests and diseases without causing water pollution and human health risks due to the excess use of pesticides.

Overall, in land reform sites, infrastructural investment is needed to improve road access, upgrade irrigation infrastructure and so on. Inherited from large-scale farms operating at a different scale, just subdividing an irrigation area rarely works, and a new infrastructural configuration is needed for the post land reform setting. As much research has shown the old-style irrigation ‘scheme’ is expensive and inefficient and is not match to the individualised, dispersed irrigated horticulture that has emerged over the past 20 years. However, without government investment and no donor support, this sort of replanning of land reform areas still hasn’t happened.

Horticultural production in Zimbabwe, particularly the small-scale, entrepreneurial form that we see across our sites – a small plot, a pump and a pipe, is often not take seriously (say compared with maize, cattle or other major commodities), but is a vital source of food, nutrition, income and employment. The wider connections across the ‘hidden middle’ add value like no other sector. It is about time that the humble vegetable got everyone’s attention, as it is a driver of development in the post-land reform era.

This is the first in a short series on the horticulture ‘hidden middle’ and follows on from blog series on maize and poultry on the same theme. Thanks are due to the team in Chikombedzi, Triangle, Masvingo, Gutu, Mvurwi and Matobo and to Felix Murimbarimba for coordinating the work and compiling the huge amount of information and many photos taken by the team, a few of which are included here. Next week, we will explore some more detailed case studies.

This blog was written by Ian Scoones and first appeared on Zimbabweland

NEW books: Why farmer participatory research is essential for agricultural development

The trio of ‘Farmer First’ books published originally between 1989 and 2009 have just been released as open access versions. You can download and share them for free. Together, they make the case that we must put farmers first if more equitable, sustainable and productive food and farming systems are to be achieved. Debates about farmer participatory research and extension were central to discussions of agricultural development from the 1980s into the 2000s, but somehow this focus has dropped off the agenda. However, making sure that farmers are at the centre of agricultural research and development systems is still just as relevant, even if the challenges of agriculture and the wider innovation and extension system has changed.  

Much has changed in global food and farming systems since the first book was published nearly 35 years ago. There has been a massive concentration of corporate control, the state has increasingly withdrawn from agricultural research and extension, technologies – from digital to biotechnology – have advanced significantly and concerns about the environmental consequences of industrial agriculture have grown. Yet today over a third of the food in the world continues to be produced by 600 million small-scale farming households, who remain central to rural livelihoods, despite on-going patterns of farm consolidation and urbanisation.

Each book emerged from a conference convened by IDS and is an edited collection of topical reflections and cases, covering everything from farmer-led research on beans in Colombia, to the local characterisation of soils in Zambia, to sustainable land management tin Australia to analyses of the national research and innovation system in India, and numerous other examples from every corner of the world. The authors are a mix of agricultural scientists, critical social scientists and field practitioners sharing emerging experiences of the participatory revolution in agricultural research and extension that spanned the late 1970s to the late 2000s.

The first book – Farmer First: Farmer Innovation and Agricultural Research – was edited by Robert Chambers, Arnold Pacey and Lori Ann-Thrupp and makes the case for challenging a ‘transfer of technology’ (ToT) approach to agricultural transformation. Contributors to the volume argued that top-down, science-led approach to technology transfer misses the knowledges, practices and experiences of farmers on the ground. The experience of the ‘Green Revolution’ in Asia and beyond showed that in ‘complex, diverse and risk-prone’ settings of the world a more adaptive, attuned approach to technology development is needed. This was the lesson of ‘farmer participatory research’, which became for a time a focus for important work across the international agricultural research system (the CGIAR) and within national agricultural research systems. Farmer-led breeding, participatory crop trials and farmer-led mapping and system diagramming all focused on getting farmers involved in technology development from the outset. This was not an argument against agricultural science, but for a new relationship between science and farmers, reversing power relations and hierarchies.

The second book – Beyond Farmer First: Rural People’s Knowledge, Agricultural Research and Extension Practice – was edited by Ian Scoones and John Thompson, with a foreword by Robert Chambers, and came out in 1994 on the back of a collaborative, three-year research project led by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) on ‘rural people’s knowledge’ in agricultural research and extension. The starting point for this book was that if farmers were to be put first, then an interrogation of whose knowledge counts and how knowledge is constructed in the ‘encounters’ between farmers, researchers, extensionists and others was essential. Drawing on perspectives on the sociology of knowledge and anthropological insights into local agricultural knowledge, the book argued that a more sophisticated stance on knowledge for research and development (R&D) is required if farmers – and their knowledges – are genuinely to be put first. This required understanding rural knowledges on their own terms and seeking dialogue rather than simply hoping to document and extract ‘indigenous technical knowledge’ for an ultimately externally-driven technocratic project, even if dressed up in the language of ‘participation’.

The third book – Farmer First Revisited: Innovation for Agricultural Research and Development – was again edited by Ian Scoones and John Thompson with a foreword by Robert Chambers. The focus was on agricultural innovation systems and the role of farmers within them. The conference and book emerged from work by the Future Agricultures Consortium (FAC) and ESRC STEPS Centre, which were hosted by IDS, and drew together many people working on ‘agricultural innovation systems.’ Revisiting the older debates about farmer participatory research, the contributors explored the wider context for innovation – not only in the context of state-led R&D efforts, but around wider networks linked to private sector actors who were increasingly significant in agricultural development by 2009 when the book was published. A focus on the politics of innovation and the way farmers (and labourers) were included or (too often) excluded from those processes is a strong theme of the book.  

Together, the Farmer First trio of books provide an urgent call for changing the way agricultural R&D is thought about and practised. This call is as relevant today as it was in 1989, 1994 and 2009, even if the contexts and some of the policy issues of primary concern to the international community have changed. Connecting debates about pathways to food equity with a fundamental re-appraisal of production systems – including science, innovation, production practices, labour regimes, marketing networks and so on – and the role of small-scale farmers and farm workers at the centre of these remains absolutely vital.

Over this period, there has been a huge decline in publicly-supported agricultural R&D, both at the global level and within countries, while much philanthropic and aid agency support has focused on quick-fix technical solutions to global agricultural production problems. At the same time faith in the market and the private sector has grown, shifting the focus to delivery through increasingly corporate, large-scale solutions. As attention and funding has switched elsewhere, there has been a declining focus on basic questions of agricultural production since the Farmer First debates kicked off. Whether in research programmes or teaching curricula in ‘development studies’ – even at IDS – questions of agricultural production and the role of small farms has all but disappeared.

As the world grapples with recurrent food crises and many people continue to go hungry, with challenges of agricultural production affected by climate change and other interlocking crises, the basic questions raised by the Farmer First books are as pertinent as ever. Small-scale farmers and labourers still feed large parts of the world, providing nutritious, environmentally sustainable options in ways that concentrated, polluting, industrial agriculture cannot.

So, do download and read the books, engage with the arguments and adapt, experiment and innovate wherever you work, always putting farmers first in the process of reimagining pathways to equitable and sustainable food and agricultural systems.    

This blog was originally published by IDS and the Future Agricultures Consortium and was written by Robert Chambers, Ian Scoones and John Thompson (all of IDS, Sussex)