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Zimbabwe’s Backyard Gardens Flourish During Pandemic

“Urban producers are not really farmers but moonlighters with other sources of income only using urban agriculture to supplement meagre incomes resulting from economic collapse induced by poor polices and off late COVID-19,” says Dhewa.

Andrew Mambondiyani
Foodtank
July 2021

Excerpt:

For several months last year, Zimbabwe was under strict nationwide lockdown measures to curb the spread of COVID-19. But amid these restrictions, many urban residents across the country started backyard vegetable gardening.

These backyard vegetable gardens are continuing to flourish and enhance food security among hard-up city households who are without many social safety nets.

Last year, some residents in Zimbabwe’s eastern border city of Mutare started backyard vegetable gardens to alleviate the boredom associated with the lockdown. Now, many are selling surplus fresh produce—green leafy vegetables, tomatoes, onions and carrots—from their gardens and earning needed income.

In addition, enterprising city residents have turned to social media platforms, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Twitter, to sell their produce with significant success. These innovative city farmers are also providing home deliveries of fresh produce to city customers.

“The advent of COVID-19 outbreak and the lockdown have provided challenges for the communities to access food supplies including fresh vegetables and backyard gardens have provided vegetables to the families,” a city of Mutare resident, David Mutambirwa, tells Food Tank.

Mutambirwa adds that most of the residents in the Mutare’s high density suburbs like Chikanga, Hobhouse and Sakubva now have backyard gardens.

Read the complete article here.