Developing Pathways for Sustainable Agricultural Development in Zimbabwe by 2030

Abstract

Agricultural production systems in Zimbabwe are facing high intensity of climate change impacts. Stakeholders require actionable information to direct investments towards a climate resilient future. The Agricultural Model Inter-comparison and Improvement Project, Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience (AgMIP CLARE) uses an integrated multi-modeling approach to support policy-level decision making and priority setting for sustainable development and climate adaptation with the goal of improving farmers’ livelihoods, food and nutrition security and gender equity. The Zimbabwe Vision 2030 was used to co-develop, with stakeholders’ and experts, plausible future scenarios of the agricultural sector in Zimbabwe. For systems like in Nkayi district, the simulation results illustrate that investing in a sustainable future, yields more favourable outcomes than investing in ‘high emission’ economic growth: pro-active diversification and intensification of small (traditional) grains and legumes and integration with livestock, supported by inclusive, functional value chains and access to information leads to higher returns per unit land on farm. Policies and interventions that promote a switch to more legumes in the farming systems, and make the uptake of productivity enhancing technologies more attractive, achieve greater food and nutrition security and increase social and economic equity, offset the impacts of climate change and improve farmers livelihoods. Importantly, to make effective investments there is need to create incentives for all farmers to invest; under a sustainable future, vulnerability is less and the poorest benefit more. Deciding for one future helps prioritizing what it would take in terms of policies and investments to achieve the vision 2030. Testing technologies and adaptations under different possible futures, integrating socio-economic and agro-ecological dimensions across different scales, simulation experiments helps stakeholders and experts to design and evaluate policies aimed at meeting sustainable development, climate and food security goals.