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In what would have been unthinkable a few years ago, the Svosve family in north-eastern Zimbabwe is ditching maize for indigenous grains in order to overcome persistent drought and food shortages.
This is despite the fact that maize is second only to water in importance in the average Zimbabwean household, as maize flour is used to make the national food – sadza.
Maize is not only a staple and a status symbol for farmers, but also an important cash crop.
But low yields have forced the Svosves, who are subsistence farmers, to focus more on growing sorghum and millet – both of which were staples before Portuguese traders in the 1500s brought maize from the Americas, according to historians.
When I visited the Svosves at their homestead in Mduzi, a semi-arid area with grey-coloured stony soil, members of the family were crowded around a threshing machine spitting out buckets of grain.
Family head Lovemore Svosve said they would have plenty to eat, even though the rainy season was disastrous.
“We planted a sizeable maize crop as well as sorghum and millet. But we got nothing from the maize. It was scorched after there was no rain for three months. We harvested just the traditional grains,” he said.
One of his wives, Rose Karina, brought out a small black pot with a few maize cobs in it. That was all they harvested from 10kg of maize seed and more than 100kg of fertiliser.
In comparison, stacked on their veranda were many sacks of sorghum. They were able to get more than one tonne from five kilogrammes of seed and fertiliser.
“We aren’t planting maize again. I don’t know how anyone in this area can after the last season,” she said, shaking her head.
Her comment would raise the eyebrows of most Zimbabweans, but the need to once again grow traditional grains is highlighted by the fact that some four million people are in need of food aid and about 400,000 tonnes of maize will have to be imported this year.
Food scarcity is compounded by the fact that the economy is in a perilous state, with annual inflation rising to 191% in June, as Zimbabwe felt the effects of the cost-of-living crisis triggered by a series of global issues, including the war in Ukraine.
