The main cause of food insecurity for many communal households in Zimbabwe is their reliance upon a form of subsistence-based agriculture which is dependent on a limited range of inputs often poorly suited to local conditions. The current agricultural system prioritizes monocropping and grain yield over other factors of food security. This has degraded the ecosystem which should sustain food security and farmer livelihoods. As a result of all these factors, 50% of Zimbabwe’s smallholders are regular recipients of food aid today.

A baseline survey in Mashonaland East Province revealed that all farming households were producing below subsistence-level, with extremely low levels of agrobiodiversity, leaving them vulnerable to adverse ecological, climate social and economic pressures. Those exposed to the highest levels of political insecurity lived in the areas with the most acute resource challenges, with land, food and agricultural inputs regularly used as political tools.

Levels of farmer coordination and cooperation were low, affecting information sharing, transaction costs, and collective action to address natural resource challenges. In addition, insecure land tenure was a significant disincentive to the uptake of organic and other sustainable land-use systems, which require medium to long-term investments to restore soil organic matter.