This is the 23rd post in a blog series to be published in 2022 by the Secretariat on behalf of the AU High-Level Panel on Emerging Technologies (APET) and the Calestous Juma Executive Dialogues (CJED)

Maize is the world's most prevalent grain crop and a staple crop for most African countries. Notably, maize is a staple food for over 1.2 billion people in Africa and Latin America.[1] In Africa alone, it is estimated that maize is the primary food crop for more than 300 million people.[2] In 2018, Africa produced over 75 million tonnes of maize, accounting for 7.5% of global maize output.[3] Maize accounts for approximately 24% of cropland in Africa, with an average output of nearly 2 tonnes per hectare annually.[4] All parts of the crop can be utilised to generate food to feed people and animals.

Like other African countries, Zimbabwe regards maize as a staple food and a strategic commodity. This is because the crop contributes over 50% of the country's calories for approximately 13.1 million people.[5] Not only is maize used as human food, but it is also in the animal feed industry. This accounts for between 47% and 75% of total energy consumption to support the production of 37 million broilers and 1.5 million laying chickens per year.[6] This is also supporting 17 thousand units of pigs and the dairy herd of approximately 23 thousand, among other livestock dependent on manufactured maize feeds.[7]

To meet these demands, Zimbabwean farms maize in more than 90% of the country's 1.3 million farming families.[8] Maize occupies more than 60% of the total cropped area and covers between 80% and 90% of the entire land area under cereals.[9] It also utilises approximately 50% of the fertilisers purchased within Zimbabwe.[10] Consequently, maize contributes nearly 14% of Zimbabwe's national Gross Domestic Product.

Despite having enough arable land to plant and harvest adequate maize to feed the Zimbabwean population, the country has persistently remained food insecure in Africa. Reports in Zimbabwe demonstrated that between August 2021 and September 2021, the number of people with inadequate food grew by 100,000 from 5.6 million to 5.7 million.[11] Consequently, the number of people using crisis level and negative coping techniques grew by 500 000 to 8.53 million in August 2021. This was from 8.48 million by the end of August 2021.[12] Reports also showed that approximately 27% of rural Zimbabweans were food insecure during the lean season of January to March 2022.[13] Numerically, this equates to about 2,95 million people who require a total of 263 thousand metric tonnes of maize to feed.[14]

Reports have characterised the main drivers of food insecurity in Zimbabwe, including the worsening droughts and recurring cyclones due to global warming and the COVID-19 pandemic.[15] Notably, the pandemic has amplified the number of Zimbabweans struggling with malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies, as well as increased poverty levels, interrupted public health and school feeding programmes and weakened nutrition programmes such as food fortification.[16] Furthermore, the high cost of farming inputs in Zimbabwe due to the devalued local currency has complicated farming activities such as purchasing fertilisers.[17]

The drive toward food security in the 21st century has resulted in various African countries, including Zimbabwe, establishing and implementing food security policies as part of the government's top agenda. These Zimbabwean food security policies are expanding agricultural production and activities through the National Nutrition Strategy and National Policy on Drought Management frameworks.[18] These strategic policies have identified the utilisation of existing and emerging farming technologies as innovative farming tools to accomplish self-food sufficiency and security.

The African Union High-Level Panel on Emerging Technologies (APET) supports utilising existing and emerging technologies and innovation to achieve food self-sufficiency and security. APET argues that implementing innovation-led and technology-based tools to support farming activities can effectively strengthen agricultural activities such as planting, harvesting, and post-harvesting activities to enhance agricultural outputs and minimise food losses.

APET advises that African countries can adopt and implement technologies suitable for effective planting, monitoring and management of crops, and the storage and conservation practices of crops, as well as value-added manufacturing, to increase the value of harvested products. This can be accomplished by optimally enhancing the deployment of maize storage technologies and techniques, using drones to monitor the fields, and using climate-smart technologies. These technological practices can help farmers accomplish higher maize production yields. However, these technological practices should be carefully adopted to suit local settings, from the production to the consumption value chain.

Between 10% to 20% of the maize harvest in Zimbabwe is lost through post-harvest handling due to pests and diseases.[19] To address this challenge, Zimbabwean farmers have been progressively utilising hermetic storage facilities to effectively prevent post-harvest maize losses.[20] The hermetic storages include Metal Silos, GrainPro Super Grain Bags, and Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) bags.[21] These storage methods are known to suppress insect pest build-up, insect grain damage, and weight loss in stored maize grain.

Furthermore, maize crop inspection is labour intensive, especially in large hectares of fields. Thus, the use of drone technology is potentially reducing the labour and the expensive data collection from maize fields by at least 10%.[22] Maize farmers in Zimbabwe are progressively adopting drone technology to collect data from the field accurately. This enables effective maize field management and fertiliser applications. In addition, this enables crop inspection and is used to spray insecticides in maize fields much faster than hand-held sprayers.[23]

Droughts are also a serious concern in Zimbabwe's maize production. Therefore, transforming agricultural mechanisms into smart climate technologies is being considered in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwean farmers are progressively adopting smart climate technologies to address the threats posed by droughts due to global warming and climate change. These smart climate technologies include the wetting front detector, often known as the "full stop". The full stop is a funnel-shaped sensor placed on the ground to irrigate crops in water-scarce areas. Notably, the sensor can detect the amount of water and nutrients available in the soil and automatically provide as per the information available. In this case, the funnel indicates the surface to communicate when there is limited soil wettability in the crops' root zone. It can also collect soil samples to determine salinity and nutrient levels.[24] In this way, the farmers can apply fertiliser more accurately.

Zimbabwe tested and deployed an instrument called the chameleon for soil monitoring purposes. The chameleon comprises three or four short cords in different colours with sensors at their terminal end. The cords are inserted into the soil at different depths. A hand-held reader will effectively show a blue light if the soil is wet, green if the soil is moist, and red if the soil is dry. This enables farmers to economically and timely irrigate their crops to prevent overirrigation and fertiliser leaching. Since the device shows the fertiliser content of the soil, it is helping Zimbabwean farmers prevent fertiliser wastage and enabling micronutrient management. Such data enables farmers to know the nutrient contents to determine the timely application of limited nutrients in the soil, assist with water irrigation management, and promote crop management decision-making to enable high crop yields.

Rural farmers are utilising conservation agriculture as a crop management system. This system is based on minimum soil disturbance, crop residue retention mulching, and crop rotations. Furthermore, there are campaigns of experience sharing to promote climate-smart feed production and water conservation initiatives being implemented.[25] Some farmers are also experimenting with techniques to help preserve moisture and enhance soil fertility.[26] These farmers are utilising plastic and organic mulch, conservation agriculture basins, and tied ridges without mulch or with either plastic or organic mulch.[27] Other farmers are engaged in intercropping and farming drought-tolerant maize varieties, quality protein maize, and pigeon pea.

APET notes that climate-smart agriculture in Zimbabwe comprises farming practices that enhance farm efficiency and profitability, support farmers in acclimatising to the negative effects of climate change and alleviate climate change effects. The climate-smart practices, such as localised conservation agriculture, are conserving soil moisture, preserving crop residues for soil fertility, minimally disturbing the soil, and diversifying through rotation or intercropping. For example, farmers practice soil carbon sequestration to decrease greenhouse gas emissions.[28]

Even though maize production in Zimbabwe faces numerous challenges, APET believes deploying modern maize farming innovations and technologies can ensure food security. Thus, African governments are encouraged to adopt and implement agricultural technologies to achieve food security in Africa. However, African countries should enhance their policymaking and implementation to cater for emerging technologies such as drone technologies and innovation.

 

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[1] https://www.iita.org/cropsnew/maize/#1620923190212-7c9ed661-81d8.

[2] Shiferaw, B., Prasanna, B.M., Hellin, J. et al. Crops that feed the world 6. Past successes and future challenges to the role played by maize in global food security. Food Sec. 3, 307 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-011-0140-5.

[3] https://www.iita.org/cropsnew/maize/.

[4] https://www.roff.co.za/blogs/blog/making-money-from-maize-in-africa.

[5] https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00M75W.pdf.

[6] https://www.investmentmonitor.ai/sectors/agribusiness/maize-environmental-crop-corn-food.

[7] https://www.fao.org/3/ca6400en/ca6400en.pdf

[8] https://www.reuters.com/article/zimbabwe-farming-drought-climatechange-idAFL8N2H3286

[9] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2020.617009/full.

[10] https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00M75W.pdf.

[11] https://reliefweb.int/report/zimbabwe/zimbabwe-food-insecurity-emergency-plan-action-epoa-dref-operation-n-mdrzw016.

[12] https://uploads.geobingan.info/attachment/7adac9a3e4dd4fb8ad6e7a085c3c51ce.pdf.

[13] https://www.voanews.com/a/wfp-65-million-needed-to-ease-zimbabwe-food-insecurity-/6305723.html#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20latest%202021%20rural%20Zimbabwe,between%20January%20and%20March%202022.

[14] https://reliefweb.int/report/zimbabwe/zimbabwe-food-insecurity-emergency-plan-action-epoa-dref-operation-n-mdrzw016.

[15] https://www.fao.org/3/cb9997en/cb9997en.pdf.

[16] https://www.unicef.org/zimbabwe/nutrition.

[17] https://www.fao.org/3/a1136e/a1136e.pdf.

[18]https://mg.co.za/africa/2022-03-31-zimbabwe-on-the-verge-of-famine-and-malnutrition-occurs-throughout-the-country/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%202021%20Zimbabwe,cannot%20afford%20to%20buy%20food.

[19] Adebayo B. Abass, Gabriel Ndunguru, Peter Mamiro, Bamidele Alenkhe, Nicholas Mlingi, Mateete Bekunda, Post-harvest food losses in a maize-based farming system of semi-arid savannah area of Tanzania, Journal of Stored Products Research, 57, 2014, 49-57, ISSN 0022-474X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jspr.2013.12.004.

[20] Shaw Mlambo, Brighton M. Mvumi, Tanya Stathers, Macdonald Mubayiwa, Tinashe Nyabako, Field efficacy of hermetic and other maize grain storage options under smallholder farmer management, Crop Protection, 98, 2017, 198-210, ISSN 0261-2194, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cropro.2017.04.001.

[21] Baributsa, Dieudonne & Ignacio, Ma. Cristine Concepcion. (2020). Developments in the use of hermetic bags for grain storage. 10.19103/AS.2020.0072.06.

[22] https://www.scidev.net/sub-saharan-africa/news/maize-breeders-reaping-benefits-of-using-drones/.

[23] https://croplife.org/case-study/importance-of-pesticides-for-growing-maize-in-sub-saharan-africa/.

[24] https://www.newframe.com/zimbabwean-farmers-step-into-the-future-of-farming/.

[25] https://www.ilri.org/news/climate-smart-farming-offers-hope-zimbabwe%E2%80%99s-smallholders-and-livestock-keepers.

[26] Kamanga, Bernard & Shamudzarira, Zondai. (2001). On-farm legume experimentation to improve soil fertility in Zimuto communal area, Zimbabwe: Farmer perceptions and feedback.

[27] Salomons, M., Braul, A., Jazi, L., & Entz, M. H. (2018). Intercropping in Zimbabwe conservation agriculture systems using a farmer-participatory research approach. African Journal of Agricultural Research, 13(31), 1531-1539.

[28] Ziadat, Feras & Bunning, Sally & Corsi, Sandra & Vargas, Ronald. (2018). Sustainable soil and land management for climate smart agriculture.