It’s June, right at the peak of Zimbabwe’s winter season, and either side of the Harare-Chinhoyi railway line – area bordering Warren Park D and Cold Comfort suburbs – exudes beautiful views of well-manicured greenery.
Months have passed since the last drop of summer rains and normally the view here should depict brown sun-roasted vegetation.
“Seeing a gap where people in my community were struggling to access fresh, farm-produced nourishments after the enactment of COVID-19 lockdown in March, it dawned on me that I could utilise these council-owned buffer zones and supply the vegetable market in my area,” says Boniface Chikono.
Tight enforcement of the initial COVID-19 lockdown by the police and army dealt a heavy blow farm produce suppliers who could not access markets such as Mbare and Central Business District of Harare.
This forced prices of fresh vegetables to spike as strict restrictions on movement and failure by government to pronounce farm produce suppliers as essential service confined farmers and their produce to their farmlands.
Most vegetable supplies in Harare come from surrounding farm communities such as Domboshava (28 km), Murehwa (88 km), Norton (48 km) and Chiweshe (65 km) among others.
As a result of strict enforcement of lockdown regulations, many were left counting losses as they could not deliver perishables at their traditional markets.
“Most of our produce is in the compost,” Tracy Simango, a Wedza farmer, was quoted in one of the local publications.
Those who managed to navigate their way to the marketplace were deemed lawbreakers and had their produce confiscated.
In Mutare, the country’s fourth-largest city, Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) officials sparked outrage when they burnt up to three tonnes of seized farm produce belonging to farmers who had continued operations at Sakubva vegetable market.
Seeing the chaos, and looking to address community problems, innovative urbanites were prompted to utilize open spaces for agriculture. These are spaces spelt to be council land and buffer zones giving breathers between residential infrastructure and roads or railway lines.
Chikono produces fresh vegetables irrigated by a borehole a few meters away from his house.
As the country encounters successive droughts threatening food security, Chikono believes extensive urban agriculture may be the way out as a mitigation measure against such climate change shocks.
“While successive droughts have played a part, I strongly believe we have ceased to be the breadbasket of Africa because of underutilization of land. People love living with the idea of owning a piece of land but without substantial production to it. One would rather keep it idle than see someone making use of it.
“I would have loved to expand and stretch it for some more meters, but the moment I do so, despite it being council land, my neighbour will be up in arms with me for encroaching into their territory, never mind the fact that they are not utilizing the space for anything,” said Chikono.
He added that if council could step up a scheme in which it licenses those with capacity to use open spaces, food security issues would be substantially addressed.
“If council could maybe give licenses to those with the capacity to utilize these open spaces. That way, we could boost the country’s food security, it is better to convert these spaces into farming land than for them to be turned into dumpsites,” he said.
With council struggling to maintain regular refuse collection, Chikono’s concerns are evident in Harare where most open spaces have become garbage dump sites.
While it started off as a problem-solving initiative for Chikono, it all began as a way of killing boredom and idleness for his colleagues.
“I thought to myself, instead of lying idle and arguing with my spouse, how about a garden? I then started with a small portion until it grew inside me and expanded to where I am today,” said Kudzai Zengere who is supplying his area with onions and tomatoes.
These developments in Cold Comfort suggest that, if managed well, urban agriculture can ease dependency of food supply from rural areas which then reduces cost of supplying and distributing food for urban areas.
Excess produce from rural areas can be relegated for export and reserves thus boosting food security.
“Even way before the lockdown, urban farming chipped in to address food security issues as people lost their traditional sources of income,” executive director of Zimbabwe Farmers Union, Paul Zakariya told this publication.
The World Bank says irrigated agriculture represents 20 percent of the total cultivated land and contributes 40% of the total food produced worldwide. On average, irrigated agriculture is said to be at least twice as productive per unit of land as rain-fed agriculture.
Although city by-laws do not allow urban farming on roadsides, verges, wetlands and along streams, Harare City Council spokesperson, Michael Chideme says, “for as long as urban farming conforms to the city by-laws it will be allowed.”
