Zimbabwe’s experiences in agricultural research priority setting for communal area households

Abstract

Agricultural research priority setting in Zimbabwe has traditionally been based on the need to ensure national food self sufficiency and to promote export crops. To this end, much has been achieved over the years as evidenced by spectacular increases in crop yields and output in both the large scale commercial and communal farming areas, Table 1. These productivity gains can be directly attributed to the practical application of improved technology resulting from research work conducted in this country (Tattersfield, 1982). For example, over 95 percent of communal area farmers purchase and plant hybrid maize seed each year, thus increasing communal maize production and the proportion of the total crop delivered to official marketing outlets. For example, Table 2 reveals that the contribution of communal farmers to the marketed maize output has increased from eight percent in 1976-80 to 48 percent in 1986-88 while the proportion of cotton produced by communal farmers has increased from 22 percent to 56 percent over the same period. Such advances clearly demonstrate that, given the appropriate technical and institutional support, communal farmers have the capacity and willingness to invest in expanding the country’s agricultural production