Current context

Zimbabwe has a relatively diverse economy that has seen some decline in recent years, noticeably in the manufacturing sectors. Agriculture is the mainstay of the Zimbabwean economy, followed by mining and services. WTO (2011: vii) notes that “state ownership and intervention in the economy remain significant, rendering the supply of key goods and services inefficient and costly”. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth was in the range of 0.5% - 1.3% in the period 2015-17 reflecting a lack of economic activity brought about by rainfall variability, high cost of production and erosion in competitiveness (ADB, 2017). At the time of this research the economy was experiencing a shortage of foreign currency critical to fund inputs. In addition, balance of payments deficits, falling fiscal revenue, capital flight and deflationary pressure have limited development expenditure. Allied to this, cash shortages have driven a lot of the economy into the informal space, exacerbating other economic challenges. In the agricultural sector, the Government of Zimbabwe’s response to these challenges has been the implementation of the “Command Agriculture” programme with subsidized inputs for maize in 2017 and guaranteed purchase at well above import parity prices (World Bank, 2017a:2). As this was implemented during a year of good rainfall, it has significantly boosted output. A “Command Livestock” programme along similar lines is now proposed.

In terms of the business climate, Zimbabwe ranks 159/190 in the World Bank ‘Doing business’ indices (World Bank, 2017b), and 154/176 in the Corruption Perceptions Index (Transparency, 2017), reflecting some of the difficulties that individuals and firms might have in conducting day-to-day business and trade.

Agriculture remains the mainstay of the Zimbabwe economy contributing about 18.5% of GDP and employing something like 66% of the national labour force (WTO, 2011:63). The country has 5 ‘Natural Regions’ with varying rainfall (MOA, 2017). In all of these, livestock plays a central role.

Whilst per capita GDP has increased, per capita contribution to agricultural value added has been static (see Figure 5).

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FIGURE 5: ECONOMIC TRENDS AND AGRICULTURE 2006-2015(US$)

Source: UNDATA (Agricultural value added) and IMF (Per capita GDP) In recent times, Zimbabwe has moved from an occasional food surplus country based on a small commercial agricultural sector, to a food deficit country based on small scale mixed grain and livestock production with elements of cash crops such as tobacco and cotton, largely on family farms of less than two hectares.

Zimbabwe has undergone a significant period of land reform. In 1980 6,000 farmers, mostly white, farmed 15.5 million hectares of land intensively and commercially. Several different land reform schemes have resulted in an abundance of new farmers. Figures are patchy, but 4,000 commercial farms would have been seized and 161,500 to 300,000 farm households have been resettled on about 4.9 million hectares (Scoones et al, 2010).

Rapid land reform and economic changes allied to poor data makes defining land use types in Zimbabwe a challenge. Here we have elected to define production actors into three economic and social categories that reflect farming system, land holding size and land reform status (see T 3)2_. Note that we have chosen to leave out of this calculation the estimated 1.6 million hectares of land that fall into the category of ‘trusts, parastatals, conservancies and unallocated land’ as those interviewed suggested that little economic activity was occurring in these areas at the time that the research was conducted.

2 _{Many information that could enable to describe precisely the functioning of the seven different types (official} typology) and the different interactions between them and other actors of the VC was lacking. This would need deeper investigations (more surveys, more field missions, more areas, etc.) and would result in a more complex functional analysis. The figures we obtained in this study (farming system models) is a good trade-off between the need to draw a good picture of a so large VC in a short time (simplification) and need to produce relevant results enabling to drive research actions and policies.

33 TABLE 3: LAND REFORM CATEGORIES, AREAS AND FARM SIZE FOR BEEF CATTLE FARMERS3

Source: Scoones et al (2010) and Institute De L’Elevage (2013) As we shall see below, adopting these three categories of land use type for livestock production greatly facilitates simplification of the overall value chain analysis and provides a strong foundation for the later economic analysis using the AFA model.

Social context

Zimbabwe population was estimated to be 13.94 million people in 2015 (the last census in 2012 recorded 13.06 million people). The population is young (42% under 15), mainly rural (68.3%) with more women than men (52.4% of women, men being more likely to migrate for economic reasons, largely to neighboring countries).

The socio-economic situation of the population has been impacted by the different phases of economic and political instability described above. There are signs of a limited recovery since 2007 (although accurate data are missing) but the situation remains difficult for the majority of the population. After a drop from 1995 to 2005, the Zimbabwean Human Development Index (HDI) is slowly increasing, but is still low: its value for 2015 is 0.516—which put the country in the low human development category—positioning it at 154 out of 188 countries (UNDP, 2016). Main problems are related to poverty, food insecurity, unemployment, poor access to basic infrastructure and health services.

According to the last national socio-economic survey available, the PICES “Poverty, Income, Consumption and Expenditure Survey” conducted in 2011 (ZimStat, 2013), 72.3% of the population is poor, 16.2% is extremely poor, the province of Matabeleland North being the poorest. Malnutrition among young children is high, affecting 33.8% of children between 6-59 months of age, according to the national nutrition survey conducted in 2010 (Food and Nutrition Council, 2010). HIV continues to be a serious problem, although the estimated adult prevalence has dropped from 20% in 2005 to 15% in 2010 (ZimStat, 2015). Despite the redistributive land reform, rural areas are more deprived than urban ones as shown by different indicators of equity (Unicef, 2016). Such disparities drive rural-urban migration, and migration to neighbouring countries. Many indicators show that

3 _{The total land areas of Zimbabwe is 38,685Km2. The distribution of the pasture and use for cattle among different}

categories of farmers and cattle owners is not particularly clear since there is no up to date land survey. In this table we see two calculations, adapted from (a) Scoones (2010) and (b) Institute de L’Elevage (2013) to illustrate the challenge. We adopt the Scoones figures.

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the situation is particularly tough in rural areas: for example, 76% of households are poor in rural area (38.2% in urban one) and 30.4% are extremely poor (5.6% in urban areas).

Rural families’ livelihoods are also highly vulnerable to droughts and flooding that affect incomes generated by agriculture. In this context livestock is a main coping strategy. It supports the livelihood of 70% of the population according to the National Livestock Development Policy. In small scale farms, cattle holding and maize output and yield are highly correlated (Scoones 2018). Farms with no livestock are then probably the more vulnerable also.

Environmental context

Zimbabwe is a semi-arid country in which more than 85% of the area receives less than 800 mm of rain per year. The country has abundant natural resources including for instance land, biodiversity, or minerals. However, as shown by Akesson et al. (2016), sustainability of these resources in Zimbabwe are largely challenged, especially by mining and agriculture, the most significant economic sectors.

Land degradation, including soil erosion and land pollution, is a serious problem in Zimbabwe with significant consequences for agricultural productivity, particularly for people living in poverty. It is caused by a number of factors such as deforestation, uncontrolled veld fires, sand extraction, artisanal mining, and poor land management in general (e.g. improper wetland utilisation, overgrazing, agriculture expansion, and human-wildlife conflict).

The deforestation rate in Zimbabwe is very high, currently hovering around 1.9% (World Bank, 2015). The main causes of the deforestation are poverty related and include fuelwood collection and timber extraction, land clearing for cultivation, and energy for tobacco curing. Low household incomes and high costs for other types of energy are driving forces.

Zimbabwe is a semi-arid country and water, which is a key resource, is unevenly distributed in time and space leading to recurring water scarcity (Davis and Hirji, 2014). Although it shares one of the

world’s greatest water bodies, the Zambezi River, it does not currently supply water to the rest of the country. Thus, groundwater constitutes an important source of water for both rural and urban areas. Reduced water availability is caused by over-extraction due to population growth, urbanisation and industrialisation, resulting in increased competition between water using sectors.

Water and Air Pollutions are also concerns. They could be caused by inadequate or non-existent treatment of municipal and industrial wastewater, especially due to population growth, intensive urbanisation, increased industrial activities (especially mining) and high exploitation of cultivable land (HRW, 2013). Traffic and industries or the extensive use of fuel wood for tobacco curing is a major cause to indoor air pollution. Sources of water pollution by heavy metals and chemicals through mining activities, industrial and manufacturing works can also be observed.

In addition to water pollution (Mhlanga and Madziva, 1990) use of there is also use of pesticides in some agriculture sectors, as for instance cotton production (Maume and Swinton, 2003).

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Despite long history of biodiversity preservation (plants, mammals, reptiles, and birds), providing important ecosystem services, livelihood opportunities and income from tourism, Zimbabwe is now facing Biodiversity loss (WWF, 2016). This is caused by: habitat destruction from expansion of

agricultural lands, timber logging, fuelwood collection, poaching, and invasion of alien species, droughts, fires, and high elephant densities. The distribution of people and productive agricultural resources is uneven, leading to problems of land degradation, where large numbers of people and livestock are concentrated on marginal lands.

Finally, Climate Change results on one hand in hotter days and, on the other hand, fewer cold days

than before. According to the Zimbabwe Meteorological Service, daily minimum temperatures have risen by approximately 2.6°C over the last century while daily maximum temperatures have risen by 2°C during the same period (Brown et al., 2012). In another hand, Climate Variability results in uncertain timing and amount of rainfall. While increasing temperatures of around 2.5°C by 2050 have been projected, rainfall is predicted to decrease in all seasons (SARUA, 2014). As shown below Zimbabwean rain fed crop production systems could be among the most impacted in Africa by future Climate Change, considering the worst GHG emissions scenarios.

FIGURE 6: TRANSITION ZONES (IN RED) IN WHICH RELIABLE GROWING SEASONS FOR RAIN FED CROP PRODUCTION SYSTEMS COULD FALL BELOW 90 DAYS BETWEEN 2000 AND 2050

Source: Jones and Thornton, (2009) Many of the environmental challenges are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. For instance, land degradation is partly caused by deforestation, which also affects biodiversity, ecosystem services including water regulation and purification, resulting in reduced capacity to buffer against drought or floods, and so on. Moreover, climate change is expected to enhance the environmental

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stresses already experienced. In this sense, Zimbabwean government is more and more aware about needs for specific environmental policies. Implementation of National Adaptation Plan (NAP) to climate change is an example of such awareness. NAP is a flexible process that builds on the country’s existing adaptation activities and helps integrate climate change into national decision- making.