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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Land, Livelihoods and Food Security
Volume 9 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1437865
This article is part of the Research Topic Land Use and Food Sovereignty in Africa View all 5 articles

Prospects for improving the food and economic security of smallholder maize-based farming systems: A farmer typology approach in Zimbabwe

Provisionally accepted
Mark Manyanga Mark Manyanga 1*Françoise Gérard Françoise Gérard 2Tarisayi Pedzisa Tarisayi Pedzisa 3Damien Jourdain Damien Jourdain 4Amandine Belard Amandine Belard 2,3Benjamine Hanyani-Mlambo Benjamine Hanyani-Mlambo 1Adrien coquereau Adrien coquereau 3François Affholder François Affholder 2
  • 1 University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe
  • 2 CIRAD, Montpellier, Languedoc-Roussillon, France
  • 3 CIRAD, Harare, Zimbabwe
  • 4 University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Approximately 70% of communal farmers in Zimbabwe live in poverty, struggling to provide for their families and afford basic services, making them a pertinent case study. This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by incorporating a participatory approach and statistical analysis into the characterisation of smallholder farmers within the context of smallholder farming systems in sub-Saharan Africa. We applied principal component analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis to classify farmers and determine their economic and food security status. We gathered the data from 248 randomly selected households across four purposively selected wards in the Murehwa district. We identified four farm clusters, where members varied in terms of cultivated land, livestock ownership, availability of family labor, engagement in off-farm activities, and remittance receipt. Cluster 1 comprises highly resource-constrained households; cluster 2 comprises moderately resource-endowed households but lacks off-farm endeavors; cluster 3 comprises moderately resource-endowed households with access to off-farm income activities; and the last cluster comprises highly resource-endowed households. All the clusters cultivate maize, the main food source, but with variations in food and economic security status. These findings advocate for the provision of essential inputs and access to affordable seeds, particularly legumes, to promote diversification. Promoting alternative income sources such as small livestock and beekeeping can enhance food and economic security by reducing reliance on risky crop production.

    Keywords: Diversification, Farm typology, hierarchical cluster analysis, Households, Principal Component Analysis, Zimbabwe

    Received: 24 May 2024; Accepted: 03 Feb 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Manyanga, Gérard, Pedzisa, Jourdain, Belard, Hanyani-Mlambo, coquereau and Affholder. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Mark Manyanga, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.