Open Space Cultivation in Zimbabwe: A Case Study of Greater Harare, Zimbabwe

Harare has a history of sustainable urban agriculture which predates Zimbabwe’s independence, even though legally open-space cultivation within Greater Harare is forbidden. Since 1990 the land under cultivation in residential areas has more than doubled, with the greatest increase in the high density locations. The main reason for the increase is economic. Urban agriculture is one of the strategies available for combatting food shortages. Home-owners are more likely than tenants or others to secure access to open space in which to grow crops. Women predominate among producers and harvests mostly go to household subsistence. However, the benefits of urban agriculture need to be balanced against the impact of this activity on the overall urban environment. Inappropriate farming of vulnerable land may aggravate the risk of environmental degradation. Insecure land tenure deters most open-space producers from adopting conservation practices. Changes are therefore recommended to current legislation and planning to allow urban development to incorporate open-space cultivation in the City of Harare as a transitional or mixed land use, while also providing producers with sufficient tenure stability and encouraging a labour intensive type of market-oriented production. The analysis is based on air photographic surveys in 1990 and 1994 and a field survey including questionnaires conducted in 1994 among a large sample of farming households in sectors where open-space cultivation is concentrated. Bibliogr., sum. in English and French.