Lasting impact
Combined, these efforts ultimately led to a resounding uptake of biofortified maize. Since 2015, biofortified VAM has provided a comparatively cost-effective, sustainable, and long-term means of delivering more micronutrients to children and pregnant women in rural Zimbabwe.
There has been an exponential growth in the number of households with knowledge on biofortified crops and consumption of biofortified orange maize. From 2015 to 2020, over 300 000 households grew biofortified crops. Currently over one million households have knowledge on biofortified crops or are consuming biofortified orange maize. This has resulted in a 58 percent increase in the area planted with VAM seed varieties in Zimbabwe and production has grown from zero in 2015 to 114 tonnes in 2020.
While targeted at smallholder farmers, orange maize production has also extended to commercial farmers. In addition, some smallholder farmers are also generating income through agro-processing orange maize into various value-added products such as maputi/mhandire (dry roasted maize) and mumhare (cooked and dried maize for preservation).
The use of disease-resistant and drought-tolerant improved VAM has enabled smallholder farmers to increase their yields. As a result, more children and pregnant mothers have access to and are consuming a variety of VAM products to meet their nutrition needs.
Through the home grown school feeding programme, FAO and HarvestPlus are promoting a nutritional safety net for children who might not receive supplements. Orange maize, when eaten as a porridge, could provide half of the average daily requirement of vitamin A for children.
Upscaling the benefits of biofortified vitamin A orange maize
Biofortification has been a great success in Zimbabwe because of government support - including VAM institutionalization through inclusion in the National Agriculture Policy Framework and the Agriculture and Food Systems Transformation Strategy - community-led nutrition behaviour change communication, and establishment of key strategic partnerships across the VAM value chain.
For extension and replication of the Zimbabwean VAM success story, FAO recommends that an all-inclusive integrated biofortification policy and programming framework be developed at national and subnational levels. This is necessary for ownership, sustainability and coherence with similar interventions.
Timely availability of and access to seed for farmers is also necessary for sustaining the quality and scalability of biofortified VAM seeds. Lessons from Zimbabwe have proven that seed availability and access is a major hindrance to increasing VAM production.
An integrated approach to programming is an important requirement in spreading and upscaling the production, marketing and consumption of VAM. This involves the setting up of mechanisms for national coordination, surveillance and/or monitoring of biofortification, and promotion activities supported by: start-up investment support through rural finance, transferring knowledge and farmer training through agriculture and extension services, inclusion of nutrition and addressing gender dynamics involved in smallholder farming families, public-private partnerships, and community involvement and ownership.
The Zimbabwe experience represents a promising strategy to enhance the availability of vitamins and minerals for people whose diets are dominated by micronutrient-poor staple food crops.
Technical partners
- Department of Research and Specialist Services (DR&SS)
- HarvestPlus
- International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
- The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)
- The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)
- Welthungerhilfe (WHH)
- World Vision Zimbabwe
- Practical Action
Resource partners
- United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO)
Related links