Impact of Farmer Field Schools on Adoption of Soil Water and Nutrient Management Technologies in Dry Areas of Zimbabwe: Global Theme on Agro-Ecosystems Report no. 14

Agricultural extension systems in sub-Saharan Africa are increasingly using participatory approaches to improve technology adoption by smallholder farmers. This approach has been successful particularly in low-rainfall areas, where adoption is traditionally slow. Crop productivity, farm incomes and food security have improved as a result. ICRISAT worked with Zimbabwe’s Department of Agricultural Research and Extension to pilot-test the effectiveness and efficiency of one such participatory approach – Farmer Field Schools, FFS – for delivering extension messages on improved soil and water management technologies in drought-prone areas. FFS are costlier to implement than traditional Master Farmer and community-based Participatory Extension approaches; but they provide more opportunities for experimentation, and collective learning-by-doing and learning- by-using. This improves farmers’ understanding of new technologies, their capacity to effectively use the technologies and to make better decisions, and improves adoption rates. To introduce FFS more widely into national programs and make them sustainable, the study recommends that part of the government extension budget be re-allocated from Master Farmer training to FFS; and that NGOs and commercial agribusinesses be encouraged to target their investments towards developing a nation-wide FFS system

Partnerships for Unlocking Potential in Groundnut Value Chains in Zimbabwe

Groundnuts are an important crop in Zimbabwe, grown by a large proportion of smallholder farmers (36%); groundnuts are second after maize in terms of area coverage. Groundnuts can provide an important source of food and nutrition, feed and soil amendment, as well as income. However, despite its importance, groundnut production and productivity has remained low and stagnant at less than 0.5 t/ha, yet yields between 3 and 4 t/ha can be achieved from improved varieties developed by research in the country. Cause for low groundnut production and productivity is the absence of a well-integrated seed system and functional grain value chains: 1. Poor access to quality seed of improved varieties – while released varieties yield more than 80% of the local varieties, varieties with high market demand are not available and farmers are therefore forced to use retained seed of landraces. 2. Poor functioning of grain markets – while the demand for groundnut products is increasing, as consumers seek affordable sources of protein, small- and large-scale industries failing to source groundnuts locally, import groundnuts, notably from Malawi, Zambia and South Africa. In this brief we advocate partnerships among government, agro-businesses and smallholder farmers as an effective way for increasing groundnut production and creating more efficient groundnut value chains in Zimbabwe