Household Food Security and Regional Geography: Livelihood Prospects in Nembudziya, Northwestern Zimbabwe

Geography Compass 2/5 (2008): 1337–1362, 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2008.00141.x

Household Food Security and Regional Geography: Livelihood Prospects in Nembudziya, Northwestern Zimbabwe

Nick James*Open University

AbstractHousehold food [in]security can be defined as the concept that underpins the various notions of relative food deprivation ranging from hunger, famine and malnutrition to seasonal shortages. The concept is also used to analyse and explain very different and complex livelihood realities at particular and local levels. Since the term emerged in the 1980s, it has gone through many changes and redefinition, but in this article the aim is to make general links to the geographies of food and other livelihood deprivations. The recent debates on livelihoods and participation link closely to the practical concerns around house-hold food security. This article aims to present analysis that brings together regional understanding with insights into heterogeneity and the diversification of livelihoods and household food security in a particular region in Zimbabwe. Its argument is that such a multi-scale analysis can give a fuller and more useful understanding of the differences and dynamics in household food security and therefore livelihood prospects in general. The regional political economy approach provides insight into the major external impacts in the region. The two most important of these have been the introduction of cotton and in-migration, both occurring since the 1960s. A second level of analysis focuses on social relations and, hence, institutional developments within the region. These were relatively incomplete until the 1990s and since then the external forces, including the state and market forces, have determined the direction and emphasis of development in the region. Finally, the regional geography approach enables analysis of the local situation from cultural and identity perspectives. The livelihood possibilities are therefore related to social realities within and among the households. In conclusion, such regional empirical focus helps to give a fuller assessment of the unfolding household food security situation in northwestern Zimbabwe.

Introduction

Household food insecurity is a regularly recurring reality throughout rural Africa and the first of the Millennium Development Goals is to ‘eradicate extreme poverty and hunger’ (United Nations). In Zimbabwe, however, the

© 2008 The AuthorJournal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

1338 Livelihoods, household food security and regional geography

prospects for secure and sustainable rural livelihoods are deeply constrainedby economic and political factors. Following President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF government’s declaration that 2007 was a ‘drought year’, a jointFood and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and World Food Programme team was invited to assess the food security situation in Zimbabwe early in 2007 (see Moyo and Ashurst 2007). Initial findings indicated that Zimbabwe was in dire need of food aid (Integrated Regional Information Network 2007) and the question was asked ‘How much of the current situation can be attributed to drought or policy failures?’ (Southern African Regional Poverty Network 2007).

However, although the author of this article is aware of more recent developments in Zimbabwe, the focus of the analysis is on the 1990s and in particular on livelihood dynamics in the North West region of Zimbabwe. Householders in this region have experienced several significant changes in recent history. By the 1980s, the region had been transformed from a dreaded ‘frontier’ with tsetse fly, dense forest and wild animals to a highly sought after settlement region. This was in part because of the political and agrarian difficulties that people faced in other parts of Zimbabwe before moving and in part because of the new livelihood opportunities offered by cotton cropping once tsetse fly had been eradicated. However, in its attempt to understand the persistently uncertain household food security situation, this article will frame the analysis in a livelihood approach that focuses around regional geography.

Household Food Security, Regional Geography and Livelihoods: Theoretical Threads

Food is implicated in almost every sort of geography imaginable. It is simultaneously economic, political, cultural social and biological. (Crang 2000, 272)

Household food security is a qualitative and cultural concept relating to livelihoods, as well as being a technical term relating to hunger, malnutrition,famine and chronic food shortage. The technical analysis includes medical,health, economic and political dimensions. It is relatively straightforward to find such technical analyses of national food security in Zimbabwe (see World Food Programme 2007). These are related to rainfall data andpredictions, to economic vagaries and to political decisions (see Famine Early Warning Systems Network 2007).

Devereux and Maxwell (2001) discuss the different analyses and debates concerning food security in sub-Saharan Africa. They state that any concern with poverty, livelihoods and food security has to recognise not only that they are complex and multidimensional but also that:

Most of this [analysis] is going to be location specific. There is a strong consensus that local conditions vary and that local perceptions matter. (Maxwell 1999, 101, emphasis added)

© 2008 The Author Geography Compass 2/5 (2008): 1337–1362, 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2008.00141.xJournal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Livelihoods, household food security and regional geography 1339

One definition is Simon Maxwell’s: ‘A country and people are food secure when their food system operates in such a way as to remove the fear that there will not be enough to eat’ (Maxwell 1988, emphasis added).

Although food security economists and technicians have remained more focused on food supply and availability, food security as a concept has moved in three ways since the 1980s (Maxwell 2001). First, the analysis and focus for attention has moved from ‘food first’ to a livelihood perspective. In other words, instead of merely focusing on supply and availability of food, the practical concern has shifted towards secure and sustainable livelihoods (see Carney 1998; Scoones 1998).1 Second, as Maxwell’sdefinition indicates, there is a shift from objective indicators to subjective perceptions. The technical concern is often with achieving sufficient supply of staple grain, and while that may be satisfactory, several factors may be missing, including the quality of the food, the local food habits and the cultural acceptability of particular foods (Maxwell 2001; see, for example, Brück 2003). Third, analysis has moved from the global and national scale to the local household and individual level. The household remains the preferred unit of analysis, although through subjective analysis,inter- and intra-household differences in food security have also become relevant, thus taking into account the complex range of livelihood strategies and pathways that people adopt. Scoones and Wolmer (2003), in their analysis of changes in rural southern Africa, therefore, argue that we need to understand a more contingent, less predictable and multiple ‘pathway’ shift and transformation in livelihoods and agrarian structures.

In order to capture the political realities in changing and diversification of livelihoods in different settings and contexts, I have adopted a regional approach. The multi-scale approach aims to provide analysis of the broad structural changes in the political economy, including an insight into processes of change such as globalisation and de-agrarianisation. A closer focus on the region involves social relations and institutional developments,including changing participation, emerging forms of governance, access to resources and coping strategies for livelihoods. Finally, regional geography does not neglect to engage with cultural matters at a local scale, including subjective relationships with food and the role of cultural mixes in livelihood processes and strategies among households. Regional geography has thereforebecome more responsive to political situations in particular contexts (Gilbert 1988; Gregory 2000; Thrift 1990). This can arguably provide clearer insightinto the social and spatial dynamics of livelihoods and household food security in one region.

The theoretical ambition in this article is therefore to tie into the more hopeful perspectives in livelihood analysis (Baro and Batterbury 2005), and since the 1990s livelihood studies have focused on developing practical approaches and policies to alleviate poverty (De Haan and Zoomer 2005). On the one hand, livelihood research focuses on increasing the existing understanding of the complexity and heterogeneity at local and household



levels. There is therefore a keener and more focused examination of particularcontexts within which livelihoods unfold. On the other hand, research has begun to analyse more critically the direction and emphasis of the changes that are occurring. The process of diversification has so far predominantly been seen in a positive light, that is, part of the highly regarded coping strategies of rural households in many different contexts throughout Africa.

‘A livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets (including both material and social resources) and activities required for a means of living. A livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks, maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets, while not undermining the natural resource base’ (Chambers and Conway 1992). Scoones (1998) takes this challenge further, asking about processes and outcomes of livelihood strategies and focusing on different processes that may or may not be unfolding in a particular region. These include agrarianchanges and transformations, livelihood diversification, whether or not these are driven by adversity or based on prospective opportunities, and movementand migration, including rural–urban relations.

The statement that rural people’s livelihoods are becoming ‘very diversified’(Carney 1998, 15) points to a recognition that rural people are either not always or, arguably, increasingly less dependent on an agrarian means of livelihood (see also Bebbington 2000). Complex modernities and theprocesses of globalisation mean that livelihoods display a mixture of acceptance, alteration and rejection of traditional methods and cultures (Baro and Batterbury 2005). These complex and unfolding realities need analysing more rigorously.

There are therefore the beginnings of a recognition that livelihoods are subject to critical and theoretical discussion (see O’Laughlin 2004). The first and most popular interpretation has placed the concept in a much wider representation, including the UK’s Department for International Development, within Agenda 21 (see Carney 1998), and within debates on governance and participation (see Cornwall and Coelho 2007; Green and Chambers 2006) and the changing roles of non-governmental organisationsin ‘alternative development’ (Bebbington et al. 2008).

Further approaches have emerged to help in the understanding of livelihoods. One approach recognises that there is a plurality and a complexityin how people make their living in many different contexts and within a rapidly changing world (see, for example, Murray 2002; Thrift 1999). Here, the analytical focus is on coping strategies (Mortimore 1989), ‘pathways’ for agricultural change (Scoones and Wolmer 2002), local and indigenous knowledges (Leach and Mearns 1996), changes and local place focuses(Bebbington 2000) and insights to different political ecologies (Baro and Batterbury 2005).

A third perspective on livelihoods is more critical of the exclusively local focus. In this political economy approach, to livelihoods analyses focuses on ‘the longer and broader sweeps of historical change, in this case



the remorseless process of proletarianisation’ (Francis and Murray 2002, 485). O’Laughlin (2004, 385) goes further and critically questions the ‘usefulnessof livelihoods analysis for understanding poverty . . .’ It is recognised, therefore,that there has been a strong critique of the local focus and a so-called‘debilitating idiography’ (Mohan and Wilson 2005, 276) and also the uncritical and apolitical livelihood approaches (O’Laughlin 2004). ‘More recent work has begun to question the seemingly organic link between locality, knowledge and action by seeing political community and culture as simultaneously local and global’ (Escobar 2001 cited in Mohan and Wilson 2005, 267).

This article, therefore, maintains that the region is an appropriate con-textual setting for the analysis of livelihoods in relation to the simultaneous processes of both globalisation and localisation (De Haan 2000). There are therefore two related questions in relation to the increasing diversity of livelihoods in rural Africa. One issue is with the rapidly changing realities that are being faced by people. These can cause distress and some evidencepoints to new ‘territoriality’ in places and regions with unique and particularagrarian developments, institutional social relations and cultural interrela-tionships at household and local levels. There is wide recognition of both the prospects and constraints following the lessening and changing state relationships with people in regions and local areas (Keeley and Scoones 2003). Since the 1990s, neoliberalism and markets have become more dominant in African rural political economies and, in addition, the global influence is more present (De Haan 2000). Livelihoods are therefore compelled to change and adapt simultaneously to both local and global influences, and livelihood strategies need therefore to acknowledge this greater complexity.

Second, while an increase in diversity offers mixed prospects for livelihood security, it is not clear what the extent of that change is. Diversity can be associated with success and the relative freedom for people to undertake a wide range of activities to enhance the possibilities for livelihood security. The success has been associated with the popularity of ‘sustainable rural livelihood’ (Carney 1998), ‘people-first’ (Chambers 1983) and participatoryapproaches (Bebbington et al. 2008; Hickey and Mohan 2004), and with the research into indigenous technical knowledge (Richards 1985). On theother hand, compelled diversity is a measure of relative distress, the spreadingof risks and an increase in vulnerability (Ellis 2000; Niehof 2004; Scoones et al. 1996). Unfortunately, for the people in the North West region in Zimbabwe, major conflict has occurred during two occasions since the 1960s (Hammar 2001; Worby 1998a) and the economic and political situation has become significantly worse during the 2000s (McGreal 2002). Thisarticle, therefore, critically analyses the prospects for livelihoods under changing constraints ranging from insufficient and poor governance in the state institutions, to the uncertain and worsening economic realities since the 1990s. For households, this is compounded by increasing vulnerability to environmental hazards, including drought and declining soil fertility.



The wider political economic changes compel people to alter their livelihoods.While there are general trends and directions in such changes, it is importantto recognise the differences in responses and how this impacts on relative community cohesion. In other words, the high regard for livelihood diversity and diversification might, in some cases, not be appropriate.

The opening empirical section will draw on findings relating to household food security in Nembudziya. The analysis will then shift from the Grain Loan Scheme used as food aid, to examining the patterns in the malnutri-tion records at Mtora Mission Hospital in Nembudziya, and then to food production analysis among 25 households located five different villages within the Nembudziya ward.

The second section provides a brief regional geography overview of the North West region. This firstly takes on a regional political economy perspective to show the main and most significant changes that have taken place since the 1960s. Analysis moves then to the social relations showing the livelihood effects of the relatively late arrival and insufficient develop-ment of institutions. The third focus of regional geography engages with local culture and household values. This gives insight into local politics as well as particular values and attitudes to cotton cash cropping and food production.

The conclusion comments on the potential methodological advantages of seeing complexities, changes and differences in household food security and livelihood through a regional geography lens. For example, people’s livelihoods in the North West region have unfolded in relation to the mix of regional political economy, particular social relations and their cultural characteristics. Some of this is clearly related to broad shifts, including increasing diversity, de-agrarianisation, rural-urban relations and cashcropping, but other changes are specific to places within the region. The cultural mix shows the continued strength of some traditional values, addedto by continuing in-migration, ethnic mixes and the manner of political control by the state. Furthermore, a diversification of livelihoods has been driven in part by a series of state-led developments beginning in the 1960s. However, since the 1990s, the more market-oriented rural development policies (Keeley and Scoones 2003) have given households a new freedom to operate outside state control, but this may also have left a significant number of households more vulnerable in the context of declining economicand political conditions. Finally, cotton cash cropping has demonstrated the classical understandings of exploitation of labour and the soils. The emerging opportunities for diversity and processes of socio-economic differentiation have led to some abandonment of cotton cropping.

Livelihoods and Household Food Security in Nembudziya, Gokwe North

In the late 2000s, people living in Nembudziya and the North West region of Zimbabwe probably experience significantly worse livelihood



conditions than in the late 1990s (see McGreal 2002). However, in the late 1990s, households were facing food insecurity (Nyambara 1999), fluctuating levels of malnutrition ( James 2002), increasing levels of socio-economic differentiation (Nyambara 2001b; Worby 1998a) and heightened political tension (Hammar 2001).

THE GRAIN LOAN SCHEME

The Herald reported in 1999 that 12.5 million people had registered to join the Grain-Loan-Scheme (Herald April 14 1999). If accurate, then this demonstrates that local food supplies were relatively inadequate in most parts of the country.2 The operation of the Grain Loan Scheme in Gokwe North was a complicated affair burdened, as the District Administrator testified,3 by a severe shortage of transport and in 1999 by a national shortage of maize.

The loan groups were headed by a sabhuku through their ‘village com-mittees’ (with a chair, secretary, manager and agents).4 The groups were eligible to borrow grain on behalf of householders in the village. Those deemed eligible by the group were allocated 10 kg per person per month. On average, this worked at one bag (usually 60 kg) per household per month. The loan in grain would be expected to be paid back to the state during the following season when rains were assumed to return to normal (Chigodora 1997).

The analysis of data on the Grain Loan Scheme among five villages in Nembudziya shows a number of things (Table 1). Gonde with a third of the households claimed approximately 33% of the grain on loan. The findings show a pattern of loans relating to the household numbers in the villages, with Chigova claiming the least amount of grain in relation to its population size. Overall, 1996 was the peak year for loans of maize and overall among five villages 134,000 kg of maize were claimed by households.With over 200 named villages in Nembudziya ( James 2002), this made it a significant operation for the government. Very few households paid back the loan but increasingly they were encouraged to sell grain to the Grain Marketing Board (see Chigodora 1997). The Grain Loan Scheme data reflect the characteristics of the five villages. Chigova is located very close to the ‘Growth Point’5 of Nembudziya and, therefore, a relatively high proportion of households were engaged in off-farm income. In the householdsurvey, two households in Chigova chose not to grow cotton for reasons including labour shortages and a guaranteed off-farm income from household members ‘away working’. They also, together with other households in Chigova, felt the strain of declining soil fertility in their fields (James 2002). In addition, several women were involved in the musika (regulated outdoor ‘people’s’ market) selling vegetables and other items, including peanut butter and paraffin. These are some examples of livelihooddiversification.



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Table 1. Grain Loan Scheme data for five villages in Nembudziya, Zimbabwe, 1995–1999 (source: District Administrator, Gokwe, Zimbabwe).

Total households (%)

1995 July

1995 August

1995 December

1996 February

1998 September

1999 March

Totals (%)

Gonde (Nembudziya) 75 (34) 5,050 12,100 0 22,570 10,800 0 50,520 (33)Chenga (Bande) 19 (9) 0 0 3,200 4,300 3,420 0 10,920 (9)Baro (Maselukwe) 26 (12) 1,340 0 5,320 5,550 4,140 3960 20,310 (16)Chigova (Sando) 62 (28) 2,130 7,910 11,050 0 2,820 4680 28,590 (23)Gazimbi (Zvichemo) 36 (17) 1,576 0 9,600 8,350 4,080 0 23,606 (19)Totals 218 10,096 20,010 29,170 40,770 25,260 8640 133,946


MALNUTRITION DATA IN GOKWE NORTH DISTRICT

The roots of malnutrition extend beyond the reach and influence of health and nutrition remedies into environment, traditions and economy of the people. (Madzingira 1995, 246 [emphasis added])

The concentration of recorded malnutrition cases during relatively short periods related more closely to the problems posed by insufficient rainfall. For instance, in January 1996 there were a quarter of the total numbers of cases over the 11-year period. Furthermore, the 4 months (2%) from November 1995 to February 1996 made up 34% of all the cases. More specifically, a third of the months recording 30 or more cases represented 83% of all the cases.

Most cases of malnutrition occurred following droughts (Figure 1). Droughts occurred in 1988 and in 1992. However, the 2 years 1995 and 1996 experienced 10 and 5 months, respectively, with 30 or more cases, directly relating to the intensity of that particular drought ( James 2002). Overall, 81% of the recorded cases of malnutrition occurred during and following droughts.

The existence of such records gives evidence of the relative vulnerabilityto severe food insecurity among some households. The pattern in the data not only shows a link to rainfall but also points to the insufficiency in the local and national food security approaches.

KWASHIORKOR AMONG CHILDREN

‘Kwashiorkor’ is a classic form of malnutrition (also referred to as under-nutrition or protein-energy malnutrition). It is caused by a diet deficient in protein and is normally associated with children under-five. Symptoms

Fig. 1. The relationship between the variation in rainfall and the rise and fall in malnutrition cases recorded at Mtora Mission Hospital, Nembudziya (sources: Meteorological Offices, Harare; Mtora Mission Hospital and Gokwe Hospital).



include swollen bellies (oedema – a condition in which excess fluid stores in the body resulting in swollen belly and ankles), apathy, and skin and hair problems. Kwashiorkor occurs as a result in deficiency in proteinrelative to calories (Young 1997).

The 11 years in which data were collected show a decline in recorded cases of under-fives with kwashiorkor. Nevertheless, analysis shows that during the whole period 40% of the malnourished were under-five. After June 1993, only a few peaks in kwashiorkor cases occurred. Recorded cases of kwashiorkor did rise in the drought of 1995/1996 but the cases remained below five for each month until 1999. Zimbabwe’s Drought Relief Programme was credited with protecting livelihoods and targeting malnutrition among young people (see Munro 2006).

PELLAGRA AMONG ADULTS

Pellagra is identified by evidence of dermatitis, diarrhoea and distemper in a person (Bender and Bender 1995). It occurs following a shortage of niacin (nicotinic acid and nicotinamide; Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food 1995). Tryptophan, normally converted to niacin, is present in cereals such as maize; however, because it is bound up in complexhemicelluloses called niacytin, it is unavailable for absorption (Fox and Cameron 1989).

The data show that the peaks of pellagra cases recorded (7/9) occurred in the difficult months from September to December (see below). 1995/1996 recorded the greatest number of pellagra cases (over 300) with over 50% in December and January.

It is evident from this analysis that maize-only diets contribute directly to pellagra and the nutritional advice is therefore to support maize con-sumption supplemented with vegetable and animal foods, which contain available tryptophan (Latham 1965).

DISCUSSION ON MALNUTRITION IN THE NORTH WEST REGION

The findings for kwashiorkor and pellagra cases point to two important food security issues. One is the significance of the peaks in cases of pellagra among adults and, second, the decline in cases of kwashiorkor among children.

In southern Africa, the period at the beginning of the rains (September to December) is the ‘hungry period’ ( James 2003). During these months, stocks of grain decline; some fruit is available but in smaller quantities and furthermore, people are usually busy preparing, ploughing and planting in the fields. In Nembudziya during this period, the demand for green vegetables outstripped supply.

The introduction of ‘Nutrition Gardens’ in the early 1990s had some impact on the problems during this difficult period prior to the rainy



season ( James 2002). The promotion of these gardens by the government through the state extension service Agritex helped to sustain the supply of fresh vegetables throughout the year ( Jackson et al. 1997). Agritex supported and sometimes organised the co-operative units and the vegetableswere sold commercially either directly from the gardens or at the market inNembudziya. However, the provision of food-aid, via the Grain Loan Scheme,focused on maize, thereby potentially contributing to pellagra among thosehouseholds that failed to get access to other foods to balance their diets.

Several important food security issues persist. One is that drought con-tinues to be the main cause of malnutrition. Second, the greater peaks in cases in the late 1990s (and clearly in 2001/2002; see MacGarry 2003) suggest a continuing food security problem for the people of Nembudziya and the North West region. Neither the assumed ‘cotton Dollars’ nor the state rural development policies have succeeded to counter nutritionaldeficiencies and such severe food insecurity. In the 1990s among householdsin Nembudziya, yields were falling and, therefore, the relative income from cotton was declining. The farmers had little or no producer power to determine prices, and the organisations, including Zimbabwe Farmers Union and Cotton Company Of Zimbabwe Ltd., proved ineffective in raising raw cotton prices (James 2006). This issue on cotton cropping will be returned to in the section on regional political economy.

CHANGING DIVERSITY IN FOODS AVAILABLE FOR HOUSEHOLDS

It has been hypothesised that environmental change [as a result of agricultural development] may similarly undermine the availability of gathered foods and in so doing, undermine an important source of food security. (McGregor 1995, 163)

The main food crop grown and stored is maize. However, cotton is the main cash crop and by the 1990s most householders were selling their maize crop to the Grain Marketing Board. Research showed that households in Nembudziya bought most off their food, including the green vegetables. However, nyovhi (Gynandropsis gynandra) and selected mushrooms are the main foods that are gathered in the rains, although several others are also occasionally consumed (see African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development 2007; Gomez 1988; James 2002). Generally, evidence shows a decline in legume and root vegetable cropping since the 1980s. Mrs. Chiwara, a local nurse, was full of praise for the Nutrition Gardens and she supported the ‘Pamberi neZunde Remambo’ campaign. This was an attempt by the Department of Health in the late 1990s to encourage rural dwellers to cultivate a separate field to provide a buffer and welfare for farmers unfortunate enough to have lost their crops and facing poverty. Scoones et al. (1996) describe Zunde as a tribute system operating since the 19th century, which was in place to control labour and production among communities and lineages.



Nevertheless, despite such efforts to revive older traditions in the 1990s, several of the gathered wild foods are rejected and in Nembudiziya the most commonly available fruits, for example, are those produced only for sale in the markets (e.g. mangos, bananas and citrus).

HOUSEHOLD WEALTH AND FOOD CONSUMPTION PREFERENCES

A survey of 215 different foods ( James 2002) found that there were only a few differences between the wealthy and poor households. Eighteen foods were more frequently consumed by wealthy households and fifteen foods eaten more often by their poorer counterparts. The findings showed that the wealthier households ate more frequently bought foods, including tins, meats and new delicacies including the dried ‘mopane worms’ (Gonimbrasia belina). The popularity of Mutakura among wealthy households was a surprisein that it is known as a more ‘traditional’ meal involving a mixture of roundnuts (Voandzeia subterranea) and other legumes (e.g. Phaseolus vulgarisand Vigna unguiculata) and boiled maize (Zea mays). However, groundnut, considered a traditional and minor crop, was not grown to a great extent. The relatively small cropping of groundnut was in part based on focus on cotton cropping and also because the intensity of attacks by aphids on bambara nuts (Voandzeia subterranea) and groundnuts (Arachis hypogaea) significantly reduced enthusiasm to grow these legumes. Nevertheless, during the late 1990s, it became clear that more and more householdswere taking steps to grow this crop, especially as it tends to favour infertile soils (Linnemann 1992).

The foods relatively more frequently consumed by poorer households included more traditionally prepared foods, gathered wild vegetables, wild fruit and food brought in from elsewhere. Two such foods, tsenza (Coleus esculentus) and madumbe (Colocasia antiquorum), are grown in other areas (with higher rainfall) and were brought in by people on their travels. However, the two plentiful fruit mungongo (Schiniziophyton rautanenii) and musekesa (Piliostigma thonningii) were not popular and most households described the fruit as ‘never eaten’. The mungongo nut (wild almond) is very important for supplementing diets in other parts of southern Africa (Peters 1987; see also Cherfas 1989). However, most residents in the North West region were relatively recent in-migrants and for cultural and other reasons they rejected this source of food.

Besides the difference in food consumption among wealthy and poor households, a number of other trends were noted. First, gathered wild foods have declined in availability. Varieties that have seen a decline include several types of African spinach (mowa – Amaranthus spp.), yellow pea ( jongwe – Sphenostylis marginata) and wild okra (derere – Corchorus olitorius). This has mainly been because of the high level of focus on cottoncropping involving heavy weeding and spraying (James 2002; Worby 1995).However, in contrast, an increase in some wild green leaves including the



African Spider herb (nyovhi – Gynandropsis gynandra) has appeared in people’s fields. This wild relish continues to play an important part in householders’ diet, especially early in the rainy season (see Delang 2006).

Second, evidence points to a lessening in consumption of several foods, including mushrooms (hwowha – Cantharellus miniatescens),6 small grains (Pearl and finger millet – Eleucine coracana; Pennisetum typhoides) and the mungongo nut (Schiniziophyton rautanenii). Maheu (sweet beer) became less available following the decline in cropping of small grains (e.g. sorghum – Sorghum bicolor and millet – Eleucine coracana). Livelihoods have modernisedand connected changing cultural values included a significant switch over to maize cropping instead of small grains. Furthermore, the increasedavailability of bought foods, the focus on cash cropping and an overall decline in knowledge of and interest in older traditional foods (see Gomez 1988). However, the ‘modern’ rural livelihood wished to move away from extra toil in food preparation and the relatively difficult storage conditions.

Third, since the 1960s, several new crops have been introduced by the agricultural extension services to households, including maize, sunflower, sesame, cassava, sweet potato, and vegetables including tomatoes and onions and green leaves grown in gardens. Cropping strategies, therefore, played a major part in direction and levels of livelihood diversification. Initially, all households grew the renowned SR52 hybrid variety of maize. This relatively high-yielding variety came from crossing Southern Cross and Salisbury White maize cultivars. However, it was adapted for high-rainfall areas with long growing seasons (Mashingaidze 1994). Suitable maize ‘hybrids’ for drier areas did not appear until the 1970s (Rukuni and Eicher 1994). Government breeders created varieties of R200 and R201 as triple hybrids and, R201, a valued drought resistant variety, was said to besolely responsible for the ‘mini-production–revolution’ after independence in 1980 (Rukuni and Eicher 1994, 29).

Fourth, cotton cash cropping has also contributed to a greater dependenceon bought foods in households. Cotton as the main crop takes up significant proportions of field space and labour time (see Worby 1995).

A fifth general finding is that ‘minor crops’ like cassava and groundnuts (see FAO 1985) have sustained and revived their relative importance in fields and gardens, while subject to specific constraints mentioned above and including labour shortages and declining soil fertility ( James 2002).

Sixth, ‘nutrition’ and co-operative gardens have resulted in a standard-isation of the green vegetables and relish (muriwo) foods that are available. For example, as mentioned above, Nutrition Gardens were introduced into Nembudziya during the 1990s. They complemented the existing small co-operative gardens developed adjacent to small dams. The principle for these gardens was to actively produce green vegetables, onions andtomatoes for sale in the local markets and villages. That said, it was a venture both income-generating and also ensuring the availability of fresh food supplies.



FOOD CULTURE AND CHANGING CONSUMPTION

Instead of crudely undermining the availability of gathered and traditional foods, both the increased settlement (with the arrival of in-migrants to Nembudziya;Nyambara 2001a) and the consequent agriculture has resulted in some more complex changes to livelihoods (see James 2006). Some foods have declined in availability, including mushrooms, wild meats, insects and wild fruit and,in addition, since the 1980s, wooded areas in ‘communal areas’ have become actively protected using indigenous management systems with the support of the Natural Resources Board and Forestry Commission (Clarke 1994).

However, despite this, several foods are being revived to retain old methods of preparation. Bambara groundnut (Nyimo) shows signs of returning to prominence in the local diet. The economic situation in the 1990s led people to rely more on what they could produce or gather locally. Moreover, the decline in soil fertility in Nembudziya (following 30 years of cotton cropping) has led to the revival of millet, and experi-mentation with growing cassava among some households.

On balance, the assumptions, made when cotton was first introduced as a cash crop that people would convert entirely to bought foods (besides maize), have not proven correct. In the 1970s, Reid made several visits to the region as a cotton agricultural extension adviser. He was critical of traditional farming methods, arguing that they resulted in exposure to insects and potential soil erosion. Furthermore, he was convinced that the traditional methods equated not only with ‘a lack of ambition’ but also confined the farmers to ‘subsistence’ (Reid 1971). In contrast, he enthused about households that ‘preferred to curtail food production for their families and rather grow cash crops and buy food’ (Reid 1971, 60, emphasis added). This evidence shows that in the 1970s in a relatively remote part of Zimbabwe livelihoods were changing very rapidly.

Both the ‘mixed’ farmers and the autochthonous Shangwe people of Gokwe adapted very rapidly to the cash-cropping regimes of maize and cotton during the 1960s and 1970s. The ‘mixed’ farmers had in-migrated from the south of the country bringing with them rain-fed grain farming and cattle husbandry skills (Scoones 1997). The Shangwe previously practisedtobacco farming, riverine small grain and vegetable cropping, as well as hunting, with additional sources of gathered foods from local woodlands.

Regional Political Economy of the North West Region

This section turns to examine the regional political economy in order to explain some of the changes that have taken place. The aim is therefore to give some wider analysis to explain the changes to household food security and livelihoods already outlined.

The North West region is relatively dry, but rainfall figures varybetween the different areas. A Forestry Commission report (1998) divided



Gokwe North into 60% under NR IV and 30% NR III with the remainderNR V.7 The marginally better conditions in NR III include 500–700 mm mean annual rainfall (Figure 1), with relatively high temperatures, infrequentrains and subject to inter- and intra-seasonal droughts (Muir 1994; Map 1).

During the early 20th century, people in the region lived and thrived in these relatively harsh conditions. While the climate in Nembudziya (704 mm mean annual rainfall) and the North West region is not classified as ‘dryland’,8 the wider environment nevertheless holds a number of con-straints, including high temperatures, the presence of malaria, tsetse fly, wild animals, dense forests and a lack of surface water (Nyambara 1999). These relatively difficult conditions together prevented any formal settlement in the region before the 1960s (Worby 1998b).

However, other research shows that people lived relatively well at the end of the 19th century and into the early part of the 20th century. Tobacco was an important product for trade and for maintaining good relations with the Ndebele (Kosmin 1977). The region gained status as one containing Reserves and ‘unassigned’ land. Palmer (1977, 274–275) notes that by 1930 the Sebungwe Reserve (where Nembudziya is located) was uninhabited and thought to be ‘of little, if any, use being sparsely populated and containing little arable land away from the rivers’. Tobacco briefly became profitable for one European business operating in Inyoka

Map 1. Zimbabwe Administration.



but this was soon superseded in the 1930s by Virginia leaf tobacco grown nationally (Kosmin 1977).

After consolidating several decades of ‘agronomic’ research, the momentumto grow cotton in Zimbabwe intensified following the international sanctionsimposed under Unilateral Declaration of Independence (Mariga 1994).

However, one of the main reasons for delayed economic development in the region was the presence of tsetse fly (Child and Riney 1987). Specifically, tsetse prevented cattle ownership on any scale. This, in turn, reduced the opportunity for plough-based cultivation, which was pivotal for most agriculture throughout Zimbabwe by the 1940s (Scoones, 1997). During the 1930s and 1940s, the spread of tsetse worried the authorities to such an extent that the region became a ‘prohibited area’.9 During these decades, residents, including those belonging to chiefs Chireya and Nembudziya, were officially moved out to areas in Sanyati to the east.

During the 1950s, the Native Land Husbandry Act 1951 was actively implemented nation-wide in an attempt to ‘modernise’ African agriculture (Machingaidze 1991). However, settlement into the North West region remained partial and only at the geographical margins in Kana and close to Sanyati.

In the meantime, the general effects of the post-World War II political economy in Rhodesia led to 2000 African families being expelled from different areas in the country, including Rhodesdale (Nyambara 1999; Ranger 1985). People were therefore moved into Sanyati, the South Easterncorner of Gokwe and the Kana area just north of Nkayi District (Worby 2000). ‘The Rhodesdale residents [from Kwe Kwe] were loaded into lorries at short notice and transported into the hot malarial lowlands of the Sanyati and Sebungwe Districts’ (Worby 1994, 389).10

In a very short time in the 1960s, population in the region increased rapidly (Zinyama and Whitlow 1986). The Rhodesian Front government (gaining power in 1964), began implementing its policy of ‘community development’ during the transition away from the Native Land Husbandry Act 1951, abandoned in 1963, and in conjunction with the introduction of the Tribal Trust Land Act 1967 (Steele 1972). As argued elsewhere, ‘community development’ and the Tribal Trust Land Act were cheap methodsof control (Alexander et al. 2000; see also Munro 1998).

Hence, in one respect, the early in-migrants saw the move to the North West region as going to live in a remote area among wild animals and with people (the Shangwe) not accustomed to modern life. On the other hand, given the presence of relatively progressive agricultural extensionservices, this was an opportunity to exploit virgin soils and start new lives away from the political difficulties that they faced before. Having been alienated and removed from ‘Crown Lands’ in the south, this gave the in-migrants a chance to start new livelihoods. These livelihoods were nevertheless in complicated contexts. They were faced with partly recreatedtraditional leaderships, a fluctuating involvement in rural development



by the state, the rapid introduction of cotton and an escalating war for independence.

The wide-scale adoption of cotton was nevertheless uneven and con-tradictory especially when the war for independence escalated from the 1960s up to 1976 (Ranger 1998). Some people were able to gain financial advantage from growing cotton (Nyambara 2001b). The growing of cotton tended to be in specific areas of the country, including Nembudziya. Only in the late 1980s and early 1990s did the cropping of cotton spread to even more remote areas (see Hasler 1996). Many people, therefore, resistedcotton cropping when it was first introduced, a point made strongly about cotton introduced other parts of Africa by Isaacman and Roberts (1995). In part, this was because people moved into the region for very different reasons, but without their cattle they could not practise plough-based cultivation. Furthermore, cotton is a highly labour demanding and disci-plined crop needing relatively good relationships with the state extension services, and this was not easy to achieve in the political climate at thetime (see Beach 1983).11

However, by the 1990s cotton in Gokwe accounted for around 30% of the District’s cropped area and altogether produced in the range of 31–51% of the nation’s cotton. Official estimates show that in the 1990s 37,000 to over 70,000 ha were cultivated with cotton (Gokwe North Rural District Council 2000). Cotton farming had therefore successfully expanded into the communal areas. For example, communal areas produced less than 25% (or 45,000 tonnes) before independence and 60% (194,000 tonnes) in 1987–1988 (Zinyama 1992).

The state agricultural extension services persuaded all smallholders to grow cotton. However, because of the mounting conflict in the region, the state authority became increasingly marginal. For many households, the ambivalent tensions left them unclear who was in authority in the region. Livelihood prospects during the 1960s and 1970s were therefore very difficult.

After independence in 1980, the new government began a concerted effortat ‘rural development’ (Rukuni and Eicher 1994). While ‘rural development’in infrastructure, state institutions and agricultural organisations occurred more substantially in the 1980s, several livelihood constraints remained. In the 1980s, the initial expansion and economic growth was hindered by droughts and specific ethnic and political problems (see Worby 1998a).

The 1990s saw even more infrastructural development by the state.12

However, this was constrained by the increasing difficulties in the wider economy (including that of having to conform to the Economic StructuralAdjustment Programme; Chattopadhyay 2000). While cotton had been grown since the 1960s, the infrastructure and markets in the 1990s remainedrelatively poor.

This wholesale withdrawal of the state had profound impacts on social relations especially in welfare support mechanisms. People’s livelihoods



remained vulnerable for different reasons. Regional characteristics and an unfolding political economy resulted in greater inequalities and exploited soils from continuous cotton cropping. The legacy of cotton cash croppingand a particular complexity of regional development left the region with continuing household food insecurity and weakened prospects for sustainablelivelihoods. It is nevertheless necessary to focus on these regional details by analysing a selection of local social relations.

Social Relations – the Lack of Institutional Development

Commoditisation, the introduction of new food crops and cash crops, opportunities for male wage labour, taxation and the emergence of national agricultural policies have all helped shape Africa’s food systems and food flows. Pottier (1994, 156)

Since the arrival of people into the North West region, the institutional changes and social relations have revolved around access to power over the distribution of resources like land (Andersson 1999). The conduit of control by the state over people’s livelihoods has been relatively strong, but the main visions of rural development have centred on agricultural growth and the formulation of ‘communal areas’ (Ranger 1993). Access to resources, unfolding positions of authority and livelihood participation have reflected social relations among chiefs, councillors, village heads and government officials. In particular, the Chiefs and Headmen Act of 1982 consigned powers to the traditional authority but the main development remained in the hands of Rural District Councils (RDC). The Chiefs and Headmen Act did not mention the village heads (sabhukus), thereby significantly reducing the potential for household participation indevelopment (see Government of Zimbabwe 1996).

Nevertheless, a combination of ‘decentralisation’ and development being handed over to RDCs lead to households having relative autonomy in their cropping and livelihood strategies (see Keeley and Scoones 2003). Within the difficult economic situation, livelihoods, nevertheless, have a greater degree to diversify and self-determine their pathways for development(see Scoones and Wolmer 2002).

For administrative purposes, a decision was made to separate Gokwe into two districts. This process began with the Rural District Councils Actof 1988. The process of administrative and political ‘decentralisation’ thereby began to unfold. Decentralisation gave responsibility to RDCs to control finance and administration. The Ministry of Local Government, Rural and Urban Development through the ‘capacity building’ programmeinsisted on each district producing a ‘strategic plan to enhance capacity for RDCs to enable them to execute functions they are legally obliged to in an efficient, effective and accountable manner’ (Gokwe North Rural District Council Provisional Strategic Plan 1996).



Culture and Identity in the North West Region

The origin and ‘invention’ of ‘communal tenure’ is colonial and its preceptrests on assumptions about fair and equal access to land (Ranger 1993). However, Ranger (1993) explains the complex process of allocating land, portraying the conflict between chiefs and councillors. This lessened somewhat when the Ministry of Local Government accorded extra status to the chiefs through the Chiefs and Headman Act 1988 (see Government of Zimbabwe 1996). In Gokwe, most chiefs and traditional leaders such as Njelele in Gokwe South had diligently worked with both ZimbabwePeople’s Revolutionary Army and Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army soldiers and also consulted a spirit medium (mhondoro) (Nyambara 1999; see also Alexander and Ranger 1998). Initially, the state underminedthe traditional rulers arguing that they had no rights to control either land or the people (Nyambara 1999).

THE SHANGWE ISSUE

These people had a reputation for being ‘indigenous’ Shangwes, work-shy,un-modern and relatively disconnected or remote. However, despite this reputation, there is also respect for their knowledge of the environment and for their traditional powers exercised though traditional leaders and the spirit mediums.

The ‘work ethic’ that features among the in-migrants has a number of explanations ranging from Christian values and nationalist imperatives, through to disciplinary requirements needed within the cotton-growing agricultural system and assumptions about being modern and connected to a market-driven global economy.

Conclusions

This article has shown that livelihood prospects in the North West region are complex, uneven and changing over time and space. Household food security is a critical element to livelihood strategies and, therefore, a fuller understanding of cultural characteristics, unfolding social relations and the transforming political economy within the region provides a more completeinsight to household food security situations and how that links to the relative opportunities for sustainable livelihoods.

The findings show that many households in the region have been highly dependent on welfare support via initiatives like the Grain Loan Scheme, especially during droughts in the 1980s and 1990s. There is a strong relationship between cases of malnutrition and drought. Nevertheless,the area of Nembudziya managed to significantly reduce the cases ofKwashiorkor during the 1990s. Of concern, however, is the evidence that pellagra exists and continues to do so both during droughts and in the



‘hungry period’ each year. This suggests severe gaps in the welfare and support systems thereby jeopardising livelihood security. The conclusion drawn is that the food security initiatives, including Nutrition Gardens, were not sufficiently accessible. The continued presence of such a severe form of malnutrition like Pellagra indicates that access to green vegetables and fresh foods is inadequate for some households during some years.

The findings on foods eaten show an expected shift towards more bought foods and a rejection of traditional and wild foods, caused by a combinationof in-migrants arriving with new attitudes to these foods and a general shift towards bought food because of the cotton cash crop economy. In particular, the decline in limited cropping of small grains and groundnuts constrains the range of foods available. This is exacerbated by the state demanding that most maize be sold, and evidence shows that the dependencyon cotton increased during the 1990s.

The article shows nevertheless that people have never entirely been dependent on the state, cash crops or the market for their livelihood security. The analysis into structural, institutional and cultural develop-ments in the North West region provides important evidence for why thereis a particular livelihood characteristic in the region. On the one hand, households have taken initiatives because of relatively weak state and markets, but on the other hand, many households are trapped in relatively vulnerablesituations as they are left dependent on growing cotton.

Until the 1960s, the region remained relatively sparsely populated and with very little infrastructural development. During that decade, three important developments took place to characterise the region: a significantinward movement of population; cotton was introduced; and a war for independence began. This war along with the deliberate state policy of utilising relatively cheap controls via ‘community development’ and traditional leadership meant that until the 1980s the region remained very poorly developed compared to other parts of Zimbabwe. While the 1980s saw several major rural development initiatives by the state, this was in part curbed by political and ethnic tensions particular to the region and then by increasing financial constraints as a result of Economic Structural Adjustment Programmes imposed by the International MonetaryFund.

By the 1990s, the mixture of cultures came to be diluted and reorganisedby new economic processes, including increasing neoliberal policies like privatisation and structural adjustment, political tensions and the withdrawalfrom state-led rural development policies. In the 1990s, ‘decentralisation’ saw some shift in power to the RDCs and this went against traditional leaders especially the village heads. Livelihoods were therefore relatively autonomous with lessened state involvement in development. This made for increasingly uneven food security situation in the region. Commodi-tisation and the greater presence of market forces led to a shifting position for households seeking to sustain their livelihoods.



In terms of culture, the in-migrants brought with them their values and these initially clashed with the Shangwe people. In theory, cultural systems exist for co-operation, co-ordination and redistribution, but in the North West region of Zimbabwe, the relentless and continued process of ‘com-moditisation’ based around the cash crop cotton since the 1960s, added to the complex mix of social relations and contradictory cultural identities. This resulted in the lessening of both the traditional and the state socialist-style support systems. This significantly reduced levels of food security among households and compelling further livelihood diversification just to ‘get by’ (Baro and Batterbury 2005).

In the end, the unified effort was to develop the region by using cotton wealth and modern agricultural technology. The article explores the extent of changing values, and while the assumption is that modernisation is the key to household food security, many households have nevertheless taken their own initiatives to pursue sustainable livelihoods by following different pathways and taking on new initiatives, including the reintroductionof traditional crops and foods. The political, institutional and economic structures have not been consistent or reliable enough to sufficiently guaranteehousehold food security and, therefore, households have had to respond to complicated political and economic fluctuations and vagaries. The mainfinding is that households have diversified their livelihoods and, therefore, made different pathways to securing access to food. While households have made some progress towards relative food security, the conclusion is that vulnerability for many households remains very high. This is in part related to livelihood strategies that aim to diversify away from dependence on cotton and also in part because of changing climate conditions and altered policy approaches (Keeley and Scoones 2003).

Short Biography

Nick James is an associate lecturer with the Open University and a visiting lecturer at University of the West of England, University of Gloucestershire and Newport, University of Wales. He has researched questions of agrarian change in Africa, the geography of food (especially household food security), soil fertility dynamics and place geography within rural Africa. He has written articles and reviews in humangeography and development studies journals and recently contributed a chapter on cotton to Sustainable Development: National Aspirations, LocalImplementation Hill, J., Terry, A., and Woodland, W. (eds) (Ashgate PublishingLimited 2006).

Notes

* Correspondence address: Nick James, Associate Lecturer, Open University, 4 Portwall Lane, Bristol BS1 6ND, UK. E-mail: [email protected].



1 See also Institute of Development Studies (IDS) Livelihoods Connect http://www.livelihoods.org/index.html for insight to the ‘tools’ and O’Laughlin (2004) for a critical analysis of the concept used in development literature.2 The United Nations shows 12,656,000 as the population for 2000.3 Ignatius Gwachiwa, District Administrator, Gokwe North, Interview 27 April 1999 (untaped).4 Sabhuku refers to the village head or kraalhead and literally translated to ‘keeper of the book’, that is, the ‘tax book’ (Holleman 1969, 86).5 Nembudziya was technically referred to as a district service centre and became a ‘Growth Point’ in 2001. In 1972, Tribal Land Development Corporation initiated ‘growth points’ in only three areas in the North West region (Sanyati, Tsholotsho and Maphisa), but having created 450 rural service centres, several district service centres thus also became ‘growth points’ during the 1980s and 1990s (Pederson 1997).6 See FAO ‘A global list of wild fungi used as food, said to be edible or with medicinal properties’. [online]. Retrieved on 5 July 2007 from http://www.fao.org/docrep/007/y5489e/y5489e14.htm7 NR III: Rainfall amounts are moderate (650–800 mm) but effectiveness is reduced by intense storms and high temperatures. NRIV: Fairly low rainfall (450–650 mm), periodic seasonal droughts and severe dry spells during the growing season make this region generally unsuitable for cash cropping. The farming system should be based on livestock production but it can be intensified to some extent by growing drought-resistant fodder crops. NRV: Low and erratic rainfall precludes the growing of even drought-resistant crops and livestock production based on the veld alone is the most suitable farming system.8 With a mean annual rainfall (MAR) of 704 mm, Nembudziya is not dry enough to be categorised as a ‘dryland’. However, the coefficient of variation of inter-annual rainfall variation at 30 is evidence of regular experience of ‘dryland’ conditions approximately every 3–4 years. According to the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and adapted from FAO a ‘dryland’ consists 1–74 and 75–119 growing days for arid and semi-arid conditions. Rainfall is low (100–600 mm MAR), erratic and highly inconsistent. The dryness reflects a negativebalance between annual rainfall and evapo-transpiration rates. See http://www.drylandsresearch.org.uk/9 See map of Southern Rhodesia in the Military Museum in Gweru scale 1: 1,000,000 Air Information Correct to Amendment List No. 5/1943.10 This is also described vividly in Shimmer Chinodya’s novel Dew in the morning (1982, 49–56 and passim).11 Richard Vaughan-Evans, Commercial Farmers Union, Midlands Province, Interview 20 October 1998 (untaped).12 Gokwe North Rural District Council District Strategic Plan, 1996.

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Documents

Household Food Security and Regional Geography: Livelihood Prospects in Nembudziya, Northwestern Zimbabwe