Across Africa, a continent highly dependent on agriculture, climate and weather patterns are fast changing.  Rainfall is becoming erratic so are farming seasons; droughts and floods are now frequent occurrences.

 

However, agriculture is one of the main sources of livelihood for rural communities across the entire continent.  Farming provides employment to more than 60 percent of the population, according to experts.

 

With effects of climate change taking its toll across Africa, agriculture as a source of livelihood is under threat. Long-term changes in rainfall patterns and shifting temperature zones are affecting food security and economic growth.

 

Zimbabwe is currently in the throes of a serious drought. A drought that links with El Nino. A drought that exacerbates years of wrongdoings in the agricultural sector. As the drought bites, the government of Zimbabwe says more than 2.4 million people face food insecurity this year. Last February, Zimbabwe Vice President, Emmerson Mnangagwa said the government had acquired 650 000 tonnes of maize (a staple in Zimbabwe) from Zambia and Ukraine for national consumption. The cost of maize was US$200 million

 

This year the country is expecting a maize harvest of not more than 200000 tons, far below the national requirement, which is 1.4 million tons per year. The government has appealed for US$1.6 billion to feed the starving population. “We are now putting up logistics for maize delivery,” Mr Mnangagwa said.

 

Though the El Nino-induced-drought has been affecting several countries in Southern Africa, Zimbabwe has suffered also from a series of bad agricultural policies. President Robert Mugabe’s chaotic land reform, which started in 2000, has turned the country from the region’s breadbasket into a basket case. Thousands of landless indigenous Zimbabweans were resettled on farms expropriated by government from white farmers. The so-called “new farmers” have no financial resources to maintain high-levels of farm production.

 

The serious under-development of the continent signifies high vulnerability to climate change. People keep on repeating the dreadful impact of climate change. However, Zimbabwe has done very little to mitigate and adapt to climate change during the last fifteen years. At the last climate change conference (COP 21) in Paris, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki Moon reiterated that Africa was particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change as much of its economy depends on a climate-sensitive natural resource base, including rain-fed subsistence agriculture. In unison with this claim, a study by the Zimbabwe Agricultural Research and Extension Services noted farmers might find maize production an unacceptably risky activity due to climate change.

 

I have reached many farmers in the country. They expressed lack of land tenure and support from both government and financial institutions as an obstacle for adaption to climate change.

 

“We don’t title deeds to the land we got under the land reform programme. We cannot borrow from banks using our land as collateral because legally the land belongs to the State,” said Tichatonga Mandava, a farmer from Manicaland province.

 

According to Section 72 of the Zimbabwe Constitution, which deals with rights to agricultural land:

“…the land, right or interest may be compulsorily acquired by the State by notice published in the Gazette identifying the land, right or interest, whereupon the land, right or interest vests in the State with full title with effect from the date of publication of the notice.”

Mr Mandava said farmers did not have financial resources to invest in new farm infrastructure like irrigation and other projects, which need money.

A few farmers, who benefited from the land reform programme, got 99-year-leases for their farms from the government, but the banks are not accepting the title deeds as collateral. “Former white farmers had access to financial support from banks because they had title deeds; they used the title deeds as collateral but we don’t have title deeds and we cannot unlock value from our land,”  Mr Mandava said.

 

Another farmer, Elliot Nzarayebani, from Zimunya, south of the eastern border city of Mutare, said most farmers, who got land during the land reform programme, did not have any farming knowledge.

 

“You can’t expect high production from someone who does not have any knowledge of farming; government should help through providing necessary farming skills,” Nzarayebani said.  “Farming is like any other business, farmers need skills and business to run the farms,” he added.

Experts said that farmers would be more likely to adapt, if they had access to lines of credit and extension services. This comes together with private property and more farming experience about mixed crop and livestock farms.

 

Investments and policies must target groups who are most vulnerable to climate change, like small-scales farmers, subsistence farmers, women and children, and the poor, marginalized, and less educated.

 

The UNDP Human Development Report of 2007/8 titled ‘Fighting Climate Change: Human Solidarity In a Divided World said there was a window of opportunity for avoiding the most damaging climate change impacts, but that window is closing. Ten years later, Eddie Cross, an expert on agriculture, is still skeptical about the recovery of the agricultural sector in Zimbabwe.

 

“To get agriculture back on its feet requires policies and measures which are unacceptable to the regime in power and therefore I see no possibility of a recovery in 2016/17 season,” said Cross, who is also legislator for Bulawayo South in Zimbabwe. And some of these policies include giving title deeds to “new farmers”.