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Zimbabwe's women farmers face obstacles
The Independent (Zimbabwe)
October 24, 2008

October marks three important dates in the annual calendar, the International Rural Women's Day on October 15; World Food Day October 16 and International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on October 17.

The days are designated to highlight the three inter-related issues of rural women, food security and poverty. Although appearing on separate days, the three areas are indicators of each other. The status of rural women in most countries, particularly with the global economic crisis, is such that they are food insecure, poor and vulnerable.

Their situation is compounded by the added burden of mitigating the effects of HIV and Aids, through the burden of home-based care; looking after increasing number of orphans and vulnerable children, often with little or no resources.

While the global food crises appears hinged upon skyrocketing prices, in some parts of the world, Zimbabwe included, the crisis for most poor and vulnerable people manifests in unavailability of food, even before affordability and accessibility become an issue.

Globally, there are about 854 million people suffering from chronic hunger in our world today. The progress made in the early 1990s, has been overtaken since the mid 1990s. States and International institutions are failing to realize the human rights of the people living in hunger.

In Zimbabwe, some communities have been food insecure since 2001. The food security successes made in the 1980s and 90s have all been lost due to the current global food price crisis which has seen massive increases and has not spared poor and vulnerable people in Zimbabwe. Women and children and people living with HIV and Aids have become more food insecure due to cultural, structural and legal factors.

Successive droughts and inadequate macro-economic policies, social and political crises have all contributed to a situation where a majority of the country's poor and vulnerable people are depending on humanitarian aid of one kind or another, beginning with food.

In Zimbabwe, the WFP reports that, "a large number of farmers harvested little - if anything - this year, and have now exhausted their meagre stocks. Many hungry families are reportedly living on one meal a day, exchanging precious livestock for buckets of maize or eating wild foods such as baobab and amarula."

Coping strategies

This is echoed by the Food Security Network which reports that the parallel market has become the only source of scarce commodities available in both foreign currency or local currency. Some families have resorted to eating roots and wild fruits as coping strategies.

Against this background, women continue to till the land, with little or no resources. Commitments have been made at local and national levels to support women's increased access to and control over land and related resources. Related efforts however have failed to match the rhetoric such that women still demand action to ensure they access land in their own rights as women and are co-registered with their partners when married.

"While I am happy with the prices I have won as master farmer, I would really like to receive support in the form of a tractor so that I can improve my yield, says Irene Muswaka of Murehwa who recently scooped the top price during that district's agricultural show.

This message is echoed throughout the country by the multitudes of women farmers who say that duty bearers should not only focus on giving women access to land, but complement this by also ensuring parity in access to resources such as seeds inputs, farming implements, tractors and the required diesel, that to the few leading male farmers are quaranteed.

Only with the necessary resources, including extension support, can women farmers effectively utilize the land on which they are farming. "Tinodawo dzemavhiri mana" (We also want the four-wheeled machines) urge most women in apparent reference to tractors.

Land control

A vulnerability assessment exercise carried out by partners in a project designed to increase women's access to and control over land found that major challenges cited by women farmers include failure to access fertilizer, seeds and other farming implements and on time. Lack of knowledge of available opportunities in the local areas is another hindrance. The prohibitive price of diesel, for those with access to tractors has been blamed for failure to plant and on time.

Women farmers among other small scale farmers have also urged government through the relevant bodies to ensure that prices set for products are motivational. Currently, there are challenges to justify selling produce at less than production costs. Women have also called for an audit to ascertain whether there is equity or at least adherence to the 20%quota system adopted by government, in the distribution of resources.

These issues will be addressed in a four-year project where Action-Aid International Zimbabwe is working to increase women's access to and control over land in Zimbabwe. Implemented through partnership with four organizations, the Women and Land in Zimbabwe, Women Land and Water Rights in Southern Africa and the Zimbabwe Women's Resources Centre and Network, funding is provided by CIDA and the EC.

Against evidence

Against evidence that most rural women are eking an increasingly difficult living on the land, are food insecure the greater part of the year and live below the poverty datum line, there is need to ensure that development programmes by government and non-state actors target those who are poor and vulnerable. As preparations for the 2008/9 farming season draw to a close, it is important to ensure that all humanitarian, agricultural and other support, reaches those for which it is intended.

Otherwise, the country will be faced with a bigger humanitarian crisis next year. This crisis is already manifesting in increased dependency by communities who would normally fend for themselves; increased number of children dropping out of or attending school school without teachers; dire circumstances of people living with or affected by HIV due to lack of food, water and sanitation, life-prolonging medicines, among others, worsening socio-cultural status among women and girls, threatening to erode the gains since independence, apathy among the people.

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