The social impact of structural adjustment programmes on the smallholder irrigation farmers in Zimbabwe

Abstract

This chapter offers a micro-level view of how aspects of policy changes at the macro-political and economic levels affect the lives of smallholder irrigation farmers in a government managed irrigation scheme. It focuses on how farmers in communal irrigation situations are affected by policy changes that are made at top government levels. Smallholder irrigation schemes in communal areas provide places where farmers have relatively more secure water supplies than their rain-fed counterparts and can grow enough food for themselves and their relatives, and able to sell surpluses to meet their cash needs. Zimbabwe’s agriculture is divided into two sub-sectors: large-scale commercial farms, and smallholder communal farms. The chapter attempts to highlight some of the indirect social impacts of Structural adjustment programmes on the section of the population by alluding to price decontrols for farming inputs and basic commodities, market deregulation, and some implications of retrenchment and streamlining of the civil service.