Zimbabwe’s drought-hit farmers fear hunger

Standing next to her traditional wooden maize store in western Zimbabwe, farmer Lindiwe Ncube gestures towards the empty compartments that spell trouble for her family’s future.

In June last year, all five were stacked with sizeable maize cobs ready to sell. This year, only one of them is just about full after a mid-season drought ruined the harvest, leaving the 49 year old with barely enough to feed her own family.

“This season is bad, it is a season of hunger,” said Ncube at her home in the village of Alfalfa in Bubi district, near the nation’s second-largest city, Bulawayo.

“The maize cobs are small and I only managed to have four bags (weighing 50kg each). I will not be selling anything.”

Climate change is bringing harsher and more frequent drought to Zimbabwe, threatening the staple maize crop. At the same time, efforts to adapt are struggling as the country contends with an economic crisis compounded by the Covid pandemic and war in Ukraine.

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Farmers in Zimbabwe have, in recent years, turned to climate-smart practices such as reducing tilling and using water-saving drip irrigation, with some growing drought-hardy grains such as sorghum.

However, Zimbabwe’s maize production is still expected to fall by 43% in the 2021-2022 season due to poor rainfall, a government assessment found in May. Farmers have been ordered to sell their harvest to the state to replenish national stocks.

But many are holding on to their harvests because of poor yields and low prices offered by the state Grain Marketing Board (GMB), the Commercial Farmers Union said.

Officials at Zimbabwe’s land and agriculture ministry did not respond to requests by the Thomson Reuters Foundation for comment on the situation. But the GMB and land ministry recently announced cash incentives to try to encourage farmers to deliver their maize to the government.

The United Nations’ World Food Programme said in January that more than five million Zimbabweans – a third of the population – were facing hunger and fears are rising that the government order to sell maize will only make things worse as people struggle with soaring living costs.

“This year there is trouble,” said Ncube, who last season sold 50 bags of maize to the GMB for Zim$64 000 (about R2 800). Now, “my children will be turned away from school because I have not paid their fees,” she said.

“I will have to do odd jobs like cleaning someone’s yard to raise money.”

Last month, the government told the GMB to ensure farmers sell their maize harvest to the state, after production for the 2021-22 season was projected at 1.56 million tons, down from last year’s record of 2.72 million tons.

Zimbabwe generally requires 2.2 million tons each year for human and livestock consumption and officials have said some grain remains in storage from last year’s harvest. However, later in May, the lands ministry ordered the GMB to crack down on “side-marketing” – referring to unofficial or black market maize sales – after receiving only about 5 000 tons of the 30 000 tons it anticipated had been harvested.

Farmers who do not comply and sell their maize to the state risk being prosecuted, fined, and having their grain seized, the GMB said.

“Farmers are keeping the little they harvested for their own consumption and for livestock because you cannot sell to the GMB when you cannot buy the grain later,” said Winston Babbage, vice-president of the Commercial Farmers Union.

Harare-based economist Gift Mugano predicted food security would worsen in rural areas if farmers are not allowed to keep the maize they have harvested.

– Thomson Reuters Foundation