The Politics of Seed Relief in Zimbabwe

A decade of economic and political turmoil in Zimbabwe, as well as a period of radical land reform which reconfigured the country's agricultural sector, dramatically affected its seed system, reducing the supply of quality seeds and undermining regulatory control. The collapse of the seed system was exacerbated by seed relief programmes implemented by the government and aid agencies, which bypassed the normal market chain. In 2010, aid agencies experimented with ‘market?friendly’ input programmes which also created distortions and were vulnerable to political interference. In resource?constrained settings, subsidy programmes, no matter what design, became objects of political contestation. This article aims to understand how Zimbabwe can rebuild a seed system appropriate to the post?land reform context by asking questions about the underlying political economy of this process, examining the implementation of the input delivery approaches.