Determinants of adoption and economic efficiency of crisis modifier mechanisms for food security: A case of Zimbabwe resilience building fund (ZRBF) in Nyanga

Abstract

Adopting strategies to counter the effects of access to production factors, declining productivity and compromised household and national welfare are important especially in smallholder farming areas. In Zimbabwe, stakeholders including Non Governmental Organisations have taken significant steps towards redressing the afore mentioned challenges. Crisis Modifier Mechanisms have become one important intervention point in the 21st century towards improving the smooth functioning of agricultural value chains. Mixed methods including a structured questionnaire and key informant interviews were used to collect cross-sectional data from 185 small scale farmers. Desk reviews were done with Agricultural Technical and Extension Services agents and Zimbabwe Resilience Building Fund project officers for triangulation of data and exploring stakeholders’ perceptions about the crisis modifiers used by farmers. Three categories were isolated across the farming communities namely non project farmers, bio-fortified maize, horticulture pack and cow peas mechanism; sorghum, horticulture pack and cow peas. Economic efficiency for the three project clusters was 79 %, 63 % and 48 % respectively. Household specific factors of age of household head, education level and household income influenced (p<0.05) the economic efficiency levels. Data shows that the bio-fortified maize, horticulture pack and cow peas mechanism was the most preferred by farmers with 49 % of farmers adopting the innovation. About 38 % of surveyed farming households used the sorghum, horticulture pack and cow peas innovation, while 13% were not part of the project. Of the 10 variables that had been hypothesised to have an influence on adoption of crisis modification mechanisms, 9 had the expected effects. A number of factors affected (p<0.05) the choice of specific mechanism. These included age of household head, household income and number of extension visits. Participatory stakeholder thematic analysis was used to determine the relationships, constraints and opportunities among stakeholders. The major constraints across the mechanisms were identified as inefficient extension services and unreliable markets for the produce. There is strong link between farmers and the Non Governmental Organisation’s extension agents but weak networking between farmers and markets as well as research institutions. Key words: crisis modifiers, adoption, efficiency, small holder farmers, diversification