adminLincoln Towindo – Sunday Mail Reporter
The average income of Zimbabwe’s rural population has increased by 20 percent since 2013, while household food security has improved largely due to national agriculture support programmes such as the Presidential Well-Wishers Agriculture Input Scheme, a recent research has revealed.
The number of families likely to experience food access challenges next season is also projected to decline from 25 percent to 6 percent.
According to the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZimVAC) 2014 Rural Livelihoods Assessment Report, rural folk now enjoy three daily meals of acceptable dietary standards.
Further, the proportion of households living on a poor diet has declined from 11 percent in 2013 to 6 percent.
The research findings, however, indicate that massive post-harvest losses are threatening food security, as an estimated 30 percent of grain continues to be lost to poor storage and pests.
Incomes also remain low while the sources are unreliable, the researchers note.
ZimVAC comprises Government agencies, researchers and non-governmental organisations. It assesses rural livelihoods based on a sample of over 10 000 households countrywide.
Its 2014 report attributes the success of communal households to Government’s food and nutrition security programmes, especially those under the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim Asset).
According to the report, 45 percent of rural households benefited directly from inputs disbursed at the onset of the 2013 / 14 cropping season, resulting in average cereal production increasing from 346 kilogramme per household to 529 kg.
Of this percentage of households, 1,6 million also received seed, fertilisers and pesticides under the Presidential Well-Wishers Agriculture Input Scheme.
The report reads in part: “Average household income for April 2014 was US$111 from US$95 in April 2013, an increase of about 20 percent. Casual labour, food crop production and sales, remittances and vegetable production and sales remained the most common household incomes sources in the two years.
“. . . Mainly due to favourable rainfall, ready availability of inputs on the market and Government inputs support to smallholder farmers, the 2014 household cereal, groundnuts, sugar beans and tobacco production increased significantly compared to last season’s harvest. This points to a significant improvement in rural household food availability and access.
The report continues: “As a result of the combined effects of improved household food production that is expected to ensure stable food availability, improved household incomes from other farm and non-farm income sources (from modest wider economic growth), reduced staple cereal prices and stable livestock prices (predicated on good livestock conditions and availability of good grazing and adequate water), the prevalence of rural households likely to experience food access challenges in the 2014 / 2015 consumption year is 6 percent down from 25 percent in the last consumption year.”
Online Reporter