ABSTRACT
The dependence on rainfed agriculture has given rise to widespread food insecurity. The problem is that, because of historical reasons, rainfed agriculture in Zimbabwe is practised in low rainfall areas. Three quarters of all communal areas30 have low to very low rainfall31
. This means that agricultural production for the majority of Zimbabwean smallholder farmers is constrained by rainfall, most of which occurs as intensive, convective storms that are characterised by very high spatial and temporal variability. The result is that there are incidences of severe crop reduction caused by frequent dry spells, which can last up to 21 days (Rockström, 2000, Barron et al., 2003, Mutiro et al., 2006, Mupangwa, 2008). This is illustrated by the fact that in general there is crop failure in 1-2 out of 5 years necessitating external interventions such as food aid (Hove, 2006). Other factors such as the cost and (un)availability of inputs, poor transport network, and weak markets also add to the problems. In Zimbabwe these factors have become more prominent in the mid to late 2000s because of the economic meltdown related to the
political crisis that gripped the country. The impacts of government policy and the economic meltdown on agricultural production have generated debates. For example, the food shortages which plagued the country in the 2000s have been attributed to government policies (Richardson, 2005). However, this has been disputed by other scholars who posit that by the 2000s the commercial agricultural sector had moved from maize production to horticulture and other commercial crops, thus the political crisis which significantly affected the white commercial farming sector, did not cause the food shortages (Andersson, 2007). It is also notable that from the mid-1980s the smallholder farming sector in Zimbabwe accounted for more than half of the country’s maize yield, which is the staple in the country (Andersson, 2007). Despite the well-known impediments to rainfed agricultural production, considerable interventions have been made in an effort to improve crop productivity even in those areas that are considered to be marginal for rainfed crop production. As already hinted above, this is because of the limited choices that are available to farmers. Consequently one of the important foci has been on how best to use the available water. Various initiatives directed at improving the capture and concentration of rainfall in the field, which increases infiltration of water into the soil, have been tried (Nyamudeza, 1999). In the first two decades after independence these techniques were generally being promoted under the rubric of rainwater harvesting. However, these have been combined with other agronomic practices and promoted under the banner of conservation agriculture (Twomlow and Hove, 2006, Mupangwa et al., 2008, Giller et al., 2009). The main focus has been agronomy (soil-water relationships and soil fertility) (Twomlow and Hove, 2006; Mupangwa et al., 2008; Giller et al., 2009) and the tillage practices that are needed to realise these benefits. While the proposed interventions can technically increase crop yields (Rockström et al., 1998) questions have been raised about their suitability and relevance for smallholder farmers who face many socio-economic related production constraints in addition to the biophysical ones (Munamati and Nyagumbo, 2010). Nevertheless conservation agriculture has been promoted as ‘one-size-fit-all intervention’ (Giller et al., 2009), and has continued to spread in the Zimbabwean rural landscape. The main objective of this chapter is to analyse the reasons behind the promotion of fieldlevel water resources management techniques, and how these are being accepted by smallholder farmers. The following questions are used to guide the inquiry: how and why is conservation agriculture being promoted among smallholder farmers? Which specific conservation agriculture techniques are being promoted among smallholder farmers, and why have these been accepted or rejected by the farmers? These questions are particularly important given that, although doubts have been raised with regard to shortcomings of conservation agriculture, its techniques continue to spread within the country. Furthermore, the chapter asks: what characterises the relations between state and non-state actors in the research and promotion of conservation agriculture? What are the implications of these relations on the promotion of conservation agriculture among smallholder farmers? Answers to these questions are critical when one takes into account the fact that in Zimbabwe, historically state funded extension has been supported by state funded agricultural research. However, because of the economic challenges
which the country faced in the 2000s, this scenario has changed. This will be discussed further in the chapter. Data for this chapter were collected between November 2007 and May 2009 through key informant interviews and focus group discussions with farmers in Ward 1. Staff from non-state organisations, organisations undertaking research and promoting conservation agriculture, and government extension workers, were interviewed. Participant observer method was also used. The researcher took part in a workshop that was organised by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) at Matopos Research Station, Zimbabwe. ICRISAT is a Consortium Centre of the Consultative Group on International Research in Agriculture (CGIAR). The chapter firstly presents a discussion on two concepts, that of narratives and that of intervention. Narratives, which are defined as interpretive stories (Molle, 2008) are commonly used in the social sciences to shed light on social reality. In this chapter narratives are used as a way of capturing the social dimension of conservation agriculture which is often underplayed and drowned in agronomic discourse. Intervention can involve the re-organisation or introduction of new practices and/or ideas into local situations on the belief that these will improve existing conditions or practices. These concepts will be applied to help in the understanding of why conservation agriculture is being promoted in smallholder farming, how it is being received by farmers, and the reasons that explain the manner in which smallholder farmers are receiving the practices of conservation farming. After that, as background to conservation agriculture, an overview of smallholder agriculture in Zimbabwe from a historical perspective is given. The section highlights the main challenges the sector has faced and continues to face, many of which can be attributed to government interventions, both in the colonial and independence era (Bolding, 2004). The chapter then turns to examine and analyse how conservation agriculture is being promoted among smallholder farmers in Ward 1. The section describes the techniques being promoted, how they are being promoted, and the perceptions of smallholder farmers towards the techniques. The same section also reviews the benefits of conservation agriculture, some of which are contested. Thereafter a closer look at the relation between research and extension, which is emerging out of the promotion of conservation farming, follows. The section presents a case based on a workshop which was organised by ICRISAT so as to understand the nature of emerging relations between researchers and extension workers. Within the same section the emerging relations between NGOs and extension workers are discussed. The chapter ends with a discussion and conclusions.
