Environmental Resilience: Food and the City―Zimbabwe (Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements) 9811603049, 9789811603044

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Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements

Percy Toriro Innocent Chirisa   Editors

Environmental Resilience Food and the City—Zimbabwe

Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements Series Editor Bharat Dahiya, School of Global Studies, Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand Editorial Board Andrew Kirby, Arizona State University, Tempe, USA Erhard Friedberg, Sciences Po-Paris, France Rana P. B. Singh, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India Kongjian Yu, Peking University, Beijing, China Mohamed El Sioufi, Monash University, Australia Tim Campbell, Woodrow Wilson Center, USA Yoshitsugu Hayashi, Chubu University, Kasugai, Japan Xuemei Bai, Australian National University, Australia Dagmar Haase, Humboldt University, Germany

Indexed by SCOPUS This Series focuses on the entire spectrum of human settlements – from rural to urban, in different regions of the world, with questions such as: What factors cause and guide the process of change in human settlements from rural to urban in character, from hamlets and villages to towns, cities and megacities? Is this process different across time and space, how and why? Is there a future for rural life? Is it possible or not to have industrial development in rural settlements, and how? Why does ‘urban shrinkage’ occur? Are the rural areas urbanizing or is that urban areas are undergoing ‘ruralisation’ (in form of underserviced slums)? What are the challenges faced by ‘mega urban regions’, and how they can be/are being addressed? What drives economic dynamism in human settlements? Is the urban-based economic growth paradigm the only answer to the quest for sustainable development, or is there an urgent need to balance between economic growth on one hand and ecosystem restoration and conservation on the other – for the future sustainability of human habitats? How and what new technology is helping to achieve sustainable development in human settlements? What sort of changes in the current planning, management and governance of human settlements are needed to face the changing environment including the climate and increasing disaster risks? What is the uniqueness of the new ‘socio-cultural spaces’ that emerge in human settlements, and how they change over time? As rural settlements become urban, are the new ‘urban spaces’ resulting in the loss of rural life and ‘socio-cultural spaces’? What is leading the preservation of rural ‘socio-cultural spaces’ within the urbanizing world, and how? What is the emerging nature of the rural-urban interface, and what factors influence it? What are the emerging perspectives that help understand the human-environment-culture complex through the study of human settlements and the related ecosystems, and how do they transform our understanding of cultural landscapes and ‘waterscapes’ in the 21st Century? What else is and/or likely to be new vis-à-vis human settlements – now and in the future? The Series, therefore, welcomes contributions with fresh cognitive perspectives to understand the new and emerging realities of the 21st Century human settlements. Such perspectives will include a multidisciplinary analysis, constituting of the demographic, spatio-economic, environmental, technological, and planning, management and governance lenses. If you are interested in submitting a proposal for this series, please contact the Series Editor, or the Publishing Editor: Bharat Dahiya ([email protected]) or Loyola D’Silva ([email protected])

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/13196

Percy Toriro · Innocent Chirisa Editors

Environmental Resilience Food and the City—Zimbabwe

Editors Percy Toriro Municipal Development Partnership for Eastern and Southern Africa Harare, Zimbabwe African Centre for Cities University of Cape Town Cape Town, South Africa

Innocent Chirisa Department of Demography Settlement and Development, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences University of Zimbabwe Mt Pleasant, Harare, Zimbabwe Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences University of the Free State Bloemfontein, South Africa

ISSN 2198-2546 ISSN 2198-2554 (electronic) Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements ISBN 978-981-16-0304-4 ISBN 978-981-16-0305-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0305-1 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

To all food producers, consumers and distributors, both with and without the awareness that the environment is our key sustenance base which we all need to protect and spruce up.

Acknowledgements

We would like to extend our appreciation to the various reviewers who provided critical comments and suggestions that have been thought-provoking. The book was also subjected to stages of language and technical editing. We acknowledge all those who have made it readable to this stage.

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Contents

Environmental Resilience—Food and the City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christine Chivandire, Thebeth Masunda, and Innocent Chirisa

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City Food in Zimbabwe: The Origins and Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tafadzwa Mutambisi and Innocent Chirisa

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Urban Food: An Examination of the Policy and Legislative Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Percy Toriro

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Food Processing, Handling and Marketing in Zimbabwe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Emily Motsi

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Urban Food Markets and the Resilience Factor in Zimbabwe . . . . . . . . . . Percy Toriro and Tamirirepi Banhire

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Food Waste in Urban Zimbabwe: Options for Food Recycling . . . . . . . . . Tinashe N. Kanonhuhwa and Innocent Chirisa

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Food Availability, Preferences and Consumption in Zimbabwean Urban Spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Marcyline Chivenge and Innocent Chirisa Food and City Planning Management in Zimbabwe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Percy Toriro and Charlotte Muziri Zimbabwean Urban Planners and Their Role in Urban Food . . . . . . . . . . 135 Percy Toriro Training Institutions and Food in the Curriculum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Emily Motsi The Teaching of Home Economics in Primary Schools in Zimbabwe . . . . 161 Spiwe Makumbe and Tariro Nyevera Informal Food Spaces: Implications for Public Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 Tinashe Bobo, Innocent Chirisa, and Percy Toriro ix

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The Future of Food, the City and Environment: Case for Resilience in Zimbabwe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Tinashe Kanonhuwa, Percy Toriro, and Innocent Chirisa

Environmental Resilience—Food and the City Christine Chivandire, Thebeth Masunda, and Innocent Chirisa

Abstract The production and consumption of food in urban centres has changed many activities within urban centres to ensure food availability and reduce food insecurity among urban populations. This study seeks to unveil the interconnection between food systems, processes, the city and the environment. Many sources have been used to indicate and scrutinise the connection between these relations. Already existing studies have been used to support this notion. This chapter demonstrates that there is a relationship between food production, marketing and its consumption together with the city and the environment. Food and its processes have got both positive and negative impacts on the environment as revealed by this chapter. From the information gathered, it has been discovered that the production of food has greater effects and is both a threat to the environment as it results in the emission of greenhouse gasses that cause climate change while urban agriculture is also a solution to climate change as it allows the capture and storage of carbon gasses in the plants and crops that are grown in the urban societies. It is recommended that food production in the cities be done in such a way that the environment is preserved. In as much as food is a necessity in the cities, correct measures should be taken to strike a balance between the production and the environment. Keywords Environmental systems · Management · Food market · Urbanity · Regulation

C. Chivandire Department of Architecture & Real Estate, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe T. Masunda Department of Community & Social Development, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe I. Chirisa (B) Department of Demography Settlement and Development, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe Department of Urban & Regional Planning, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 P. Toriro and I. Chirisa (eds.), Environmental Resilience, Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0305-1_1

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1 Introduction In the context of growing urbanisation, urban poverty and climate change, the importance of urban food security and urban food systems is increasingly recognised. Urban food insecurity has been identified as a challenge for many low-income urban dwellers in Africa. This chapter explores the issues of food security and food systems in urban areas. Emphasis is placed on contribution of urban farming on urban food security and its effects on the environment. On the other hand, the advent of the coronavirus pandemic has had adverse impact on economies and livelihoods in urban areas. Hence the chapter highlights the impact of this pandemic on food security in urban areas as well. The rate of urbanisation has been increasing and is expected to continue rising as more people especially in developing countries continue to move from rural to urban areas. As such, more pressure is put on scarce urban resources to sustain this growing population. Food security has thus, become an issue of concern in urban areas, hence the need to explore food strategies, systems and processes in urban areas. The rapid urbanisation is also linked to various public health issues in urban areas, especially in informal settlements and densely populated areas. This chapter therefore highlights the COVID-19 pandemic affects urban life mostly in developing countries. Emphasis is on understanding how the pandemic has affected food security for urban dwellers and their general public health. It is the duty of the city to provide adequate food with all nutritional values that make up a balanced diet for the people living in the urban areas and ensuring equality in terms of access to quality goods and services. Due to the increased rate of urbanisation, innovative and sustainable strategies are therefore, vital to supply enough food to meet the demand of the people. Among them is the adoption of urban agriculture that has become a part of the supplier of food consumed in the cities. Data from other studies shows that there is a growing inverse relationship between the production of food and the environment. There are negative effects of this relationship that have been recorded and measures have been taken to mitigate them. It has been noted that food production in cities is mostly a response to urban poverty, inadequate salaries, irregular and unreliable access to food. Regardless of the benefits associated with producing food in urban areas, a number of negative effects have been recorded. Food production in urban areas has affected the physical and the built environment in different ways and has brought both positive and adverse impacts on the environment.

2 Background and Overview Food production, marketing and consumption are activities that are undertaken in both rural and urban areas around the world. Over the years the concept of food security has increasingly become topical due to the growing complexity and uncertainty

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in food systems. Traditionally, debates on food security focused much on agricultural production and the rural economy [6]. This emphasised focus on agriculture was justifiable given that agriculture had a larger impact on poverty reduction, that in many rural areas and developing countries was aligned with food security. Hence, early concepts of food security focused on the supply side of food, concerned with food volumes where rural areas were the major production zones. It later evolved to incorporate the distribution aspect, recognizing the importance of agriculture in urban areas and its effects on food security amongst urban dwellers. Therefore, debates on production of food have become crucial for both rural and urban dwellers. It should however, be noted that urban areas historically emerged as places to dispose of agricultural surplus and places where food was consumed rather than produced. Due to economic constraints that affected many urban dwellers especially in developing countries, low-income households and individuals began to practice urban agriculture to augment their incomes and reduce food insecurities. FAO [16], observes that urban agriculture is done to increase production of food in different countries, both in developed and developing. It is done worldwide with an estimated population of 800 million practicing it. Smit [28] shares the same sentiments, arguing that urban agriculture is an industry that produces, processes and markets food in response to the daily demands of the consumers within the town, city and the metropolis of a particular area. In an attempt to alleviate urban poverty and urban food insecurity, focus was shifted to the concept of urban farming and urban agriculture. Different scholars have written in support of urban farming. It is argued that urban farming plays a crucial role in addressing consumptive needs of urban households and supplementing household income or reducing on food expenditure. Literature indicates that the majority of poor households in urban areas spend half of their incomes on acquiring food [1]. Urban agriculture is thus, regarded as a way to reduce this household expenditure on consumptive needs. Urban farming offers households a supply of fresh and nourishing produce that they could have bought from the food market. Dolekoglu and Gun [14] have noted that in developing countries, urban agriculture is mainly directed towards the grower’s own consumption though market-focused small-scale agriculture has proved to be more profitable. Chihambakwe et al. [12] posits that the main function of urban and peri-urban agriculture is seldom for monetary gain but augmenting household consumptive needs. Such is supported by Prain and Lee-Smith [25] as they argue that urban farming is not a significant contributor to urban household livelihoods given that there are diverse livelihoods in urban households, agriculture is just a part of such. For those who engage in urban farming, its main contribution is on consumption rather than market. Although both low- and high-income households are involved in urban agriculture, they do so for different reasons and they adopt different strategies. Moreover, household members have different degrees of involvement in these agriculture activities. Crush et al. [13] observes that although urban agriculture is practiced by people from different social classes, there is a great variation in urban agriculture depending on the income received by individuals and families. With a larger population of

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people who practice urban farming being women. Crush indicates that in Harare high urban agriculture is practised amongst low-income areas. Varying degrees of effects associated with urban farming have been recorded across the globe. Regardless of the identified benefits of urban farming, a different school of thought is emerging. The scholars argue that by cultivating in cities, urban dwellers are ruralising urban areas. The argument is that, cultivating in open spaces in the city is counter to the growth, planning and development as it spoils the aesthetics of the city. Chihambakwe et al. [12] observes that urban and peri-urban agriculture is seldom acknowledged through statutes and ordinances. Some governments discourage urban farmers from investing on the land since they can be moved any time due to insecure land tenure. Urban farmers do not have land rights, hence, the lack of sustainability in their activities. The idea of urban agriculture brings a number of problems as some question the safety of urban farming given the limited space and growing human population in cities. As such, there is need to evaluate whether the health benefits of urban agriculture outweigh its possible risks. Mudzengerere [22] discovered from his study that urban farmers in Bulawayo practise conventional mechanised farming on their farming lots particularly in low-density and peri-urban areas where there is availability of land. These processes are mostly done in the urban environments and they have different impacts on the natural and the built environment. The link between food production, its marketing and the city and the environment has been debited across the world. From the studies undertaken it has been noted that food production has both negative and positive effects on the environment. Global reactions to conventional agriculture are centred on environmental concerns, arguing that nature of production and distribution increases greenhouse gas emissions. Tefft et al. [30] posit that the food system is a primary climate change driver, contributing to some 30% of greenhouse gas emissions related to agricultural production alone. Pachauri [24] supports the argument that food systems are very polluting in terms of climate change as they are associated with large volumes of greenhouse gases that are causing global warming and the change of climate. Although food production has been discussed earlier, there are limited measures taken to ensure environmental sustainability and how to preserve both the natural and the built environment. In as far as food security is vital, correct measures should be taken to better cities and reduce environmental degradation. The question is what should be done to create a balance between the production and the environmental sustainability in the context urban food (in)security. It should however, be noted that although a significant growth in food production has been reported over the years, the number of undernourished people has remained high. Food supplies are severely compromised by various disasters that are expected to have greater effects as the climate changes. This changing landscape of food production, distribution and consumption has drawn attention to the nature of contemporary food systems, security and resilience. Most importantly, exploring the current global food crisis that many argue is not only as a result of natural disasters that affect food production, rather improper and unequal distribution of resources and agricultural products around the globe [26]. Tendall et al. [31] argues that almost

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1 billion people in developing countries are hungry or undernourished while about 1.5 billion in developed countries are overweight or obese. Such discrepancies have increased social and economic inequalities in the world and contributed to the coexisting challenge of malnutrition and overconsumption in this globalised world. As such, in most developed countries it is now about the demand for high quality natural food while in less developed countries it is about food provision and livelihoods of millions living in poverty.

3 Conceptualising Food, Resilience, Environment and the City 3.1 Food Security Food security cannot be comprehensively measured because of its multidimensional nature. Although many studies have been carried out on food security, they have produced different results because each study has been probing for a different dimension of food security. Food security is increasingly standing out among most problems in developing countries, both in rural areas and in urban areas. Many people are struggling to secure or access nutritious and healthy food [6]. The definition of food security as given by FAO [17] and Barrett [3] sums up food security as consisting of hierarchical pillars; food availability, access to food, utilisation of food and stability. Food security exists when all four dimensions are realised simultaneously. To achieve food security, the following elements are necessary; (a) the capacity to produce, store, distribute and if necessary, to import sufficient food to meet the basic food needs for people; (b) a maximum level of robustness to reduce vulnerability to market fluctuations and political pressures; and (c) minimal variations in access to food in relation to season, cycle and other factors. Food security is therefore, a situation where all people at all times have physical, social, access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for active and healthy lives (FAO 2003; WHO 2011 cited in [11]). Ephrem [15] and Oluyole et al. [23] carried out a study on household food security in the Northern and Eastern part of Ethiopia and Nigeria respectively and found out that there is an association between household food security and various socioeconomic and bio-physical factors, such as age of household head, dependency ratio, land use and availability of inputs, land quality and farmer’s knowledge on the effect of land degradation on food security. These factors are identified as major determinants of household food security.

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3.2 Pillars of Food Security Food security is a complex phenomenon that manifests itself in a number of physical conditions and different dimensions are used to measure it. Food security is not entirely about the quantity or amount of food available. “Food security is more than having food on the table, it is a requirement for personal survival and advancement,” ([29]: 16). Barret (2010) notes that food security consists of four hierarchical pillars that is food availability, access to food, utilisation of food and stability. The first pillar of food security is the physical availability of food. This pillar of availability denotes the physical presence of sufficient quantities of food at a household level. It entails a situation of having enough physical quantities or supplies of food available to provide everyone with an adequate number of calories. This dimension is highly determined by food production, levels of stocks and net trade. Accessibility is another pillar that entails that food security goes beyond availability. It highlights that food access is the ability of people to have sufficient resources to acquire appropriate food for a nutritious diet. In essence, food availability does not guarantee access if one has limited or no resources. The accessibility pillar considers the economic, social and physical access to food [19]. It takes into consideration the financial status, means of physical access, such as transportation. It is important to note that food can be available on the market, however, some people are rendered food insecure because they cannot afford to buy the food in the shops, thereby limiting its accessibility to all. Individuals and households are considered to be food secure when there are adequate food supplies available and accessible (Stringer cited in [9]). Food utilisation is another pillar of food security that captures the nutrition components. While availability and accessibility of food is necessary, utilisation of nutrients by the body is crucial to support human health [31]. This pillar addresses food security issues that are related to diet quality, food safety and adequate intake of macronutrients and essential vitamins and minerals. The fourth pillar focuses on the stability of availability, accessibility and utilisation over time. The stability pillar ensures that nutritious food is available and everyone has access, all the time.

3.3 Food Systems Food security is determined by varying factors as highlighted by the different pillars discussed above. Understanding food security holistically requires one to examine and understand the food systems that allow availability, accessibility, utilisation and stability of food at different levels. Seekell et al. [27] state that ensuring food security requires food production systems that function well regardless of disruptions. Therefore, it is important to understand the factors that contribute to the global food systems ability to respond and adapt to such disruptions.

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Food systems encompass the entire range of activities involved in the production, processing, marketing, consumption and disposal of goods that originate from agriculture, forestry or fisheries, including the inputs needed and the outputs generated at each of these steps. Food systems also involve the people and institutions that initiate or inhibit change in the systems and the socio-political, economic and technological environment in which these activities take place ([30]: 2). Food systems are networks of activities connecting people to their food. They encompass production, distribution and consumption components that are connected through complex social, ecological and economic relations [26]. These food systems comprise of all activities involved in food production, processing, packaging, distribution, retail and consumption. These include farmers, fishers, rangers, foragers, consumers; in essence food systems involve anyone connected in the network from food production to utilisation. The food system has been defined as “an interconnected web of activities, resources and people that extends across all domains involved in providing human nourishment and sustaining health, including production, processing, packaging, distribution, marketing, consumption and disposal of food. The organisation of food systems reflects and responds to social, cultural, political, economic, health and environmental conditions and can be identified at multiple scales, from a household kitchen to a city, county, state or nation” ([10]: 2). As such, food systems have a critical role in ensuring food security at different levels. These systems determine that the four pillars of food security are attained. Harris and Spiegel [19] highlight that given the increased climatic changes and unstable markets, food systems have become vulnerable to different hazards. Hence, the move towards the resilience discourse in order to predict, assess and improve how systems and actors within food systems can cope with such disruptions. Food security is therefore, used as a normative benchmark for guiding policy-makers in resilient food system development.

3.4 Resilience and Food Systems The concept of resilience in food system gained momentum through efforts to measure how well individuals and institutions or systems are able to cope with the challenges and shocks that disrupt food security. Seekell et al. [27] argues that ensuring food security requires food production and distribution systems that function regardless of disruptions. Understanding factors that contribute to the global food systems’ ability to respond and adapt to such disruptions is therefore critical for enabling long term sustainability. Given that food security is when all people at all times have physical, economic and social access to food, ensuring food security therefore, requires that food production and distribution system to function well despite potential disruptions. The resilience thinking has a high potential to contribute to food security and sustainable food systems. Resilience entails the ability to cope with adversities. Its key attribute is the ability to respond to shock and stressors. In the food system these include immediate natural

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disasters that disrupt food production and access to food. Food systems are increasingly exposed to multiple internal and external drivers of change. Slow but major shifts, such as climate change, soil degradation, pest out breaks, economic and political crises and population growth are adding pressure to the global food systems [31]. In an attempt to emphasise the relevance of continuity, the economic development field identified sustainability as a preferred framework for describing the best practices of development [19]. Sustainability entails preserving the capacity of a system to function in the future. It symbolises the society’s ability to maintain its economic, social and natural systems for longer periods. This is one of the conditions of maintaining resilience. Whereas sustainability measures a system’s performance, resilience implies the capacity to continue providing the same function over time despite disturbances [31]. In relation to sustainability that has been broadly defined as the capacity to achieve today’s goals without compromising the ability to meet future goals, resilience can be broadly defined as the dynamic capacity to continue to achieve the goals despite disturbances and shocks. Resilience is therefore complementary to sustainability. These two concepts are crucial in ensuring food security in the contemporary society.

4 Food Security and Urbanisation Urbanisation is happening at a different pace across the globe. Wiskerk [35] posits that there are enormous variations in the patterns of urbanisation between regions and even a greater variation in the level and speed with that individual countries or individual cities within regions are growing. Tefft et al. [30] observes that rapid urbanisation in Asia and Africa is producing major demographic and spatial transformations in human settlement patterns. Regardless of this general acceptance of increasing rate of urbanisation, the majority growth of urban population occurs in smaller cities and towns, thereby creating a major resource challenge. This rapid urbanisation is changing the way food systems are perceived in urban areas. The types of foods consumed, where they are consumed and the way they are grown, processed and delivered to the consumer has also changed. As such these changes are impacting on the nutrition and health of the urban populations. In the context of growing urbanisation, urban poverty is also increasing. Urban food insecurity has become a major challenge for low-income urban dwellers in Africa and other less developed countries. As the pillars of highlights, it is not about the availability of food that determines food security only, food insecurity for some urban dwellers is not caused by shortage of food but inability to afford it. Battersby and Watson [4] state that urban food insecurity is not entirely influenced by food production since urban households source their food from retail outlets. Therefore, understanding urban food security requires one to consider urban food markets, distribution structure and then explore how they impact on food security and urban poverty. In essence, urban food security is determined by the food systems and how sustainable and resilient they are. Such is supported by Burton et al. [6] who argues

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that urban populations have found their food supplies to be compromised by different threats and shocks given the length of their food supply chains. As such more attention needs to be on the nature of contemporary urban food systems in general and security and resilience of urban food system.

5 Nutrition Transition and the Environment Food environments and institutions are rapidly changing as the food systems are responding to the rising global food demands. As the population increases, their food and dietary preferences are also changing affecting their nutrition in the process. Feeding such a growing population requires food systems to be more productive, competitive, sustainable and capable of producing affordable safe foods. With billions suffering from diet-related morbidity, access to affordable nutritious food is critical for improved human health and welfare [30]. Growing demand for meat, dairy products, convenient and processed foods consumed outside the home environment is contributing to over-nutrition epidemic. There are significant inequalities in the consumption patterns between low- and high-income households within and across countries around the globe. Urban households in low-income areas exhibit limited dietary diversity with an over reliance on starchy foods, high energy foods but deficient in protein and micronutrients. This is due to lack of income to access balanced nutritious foods. Although urbanisation was associated with acceleration of the nutrition transition, traditionally, this was identified by changes in consumption as driven by increased disposable income [4]. Currently nutritional transition is identified by malnutrition due to poor diet. However, at the same time, overweight and obese people and diet-related non-communicable diseases are on the increase. In recent years there has been a noted increase in the consumption of animal products [8]. As quality of life progresses, demand for animal protein also increases hence, the greater demand for feed crops since livestock production has increased to cater for this rising demand. As much as livestock production is necessary for improved human diet, excessive production can lead to competition for feed stuffs between human beings and livestock. With increased annual livestock production, the demand for feed stuffs is also increasing, yet the yields of corn and soya beans are not increasing at the same rate. As such, rather than improved production in general, agriculture development has become essential for food security. Although agriculture production has improved and more production is witnessed, the major challenge is that this improved production is not directly contributing to food security in terms of availability and affordability.

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6 Food Security and Pandemics Food security is more than availability of food as it entails accessibility and utilisation as well [31]. It is therefore important that people have the means to access food from the market and other food systems in the event they do not produce enough. Given that few people in urban areas produce their own food, the majority rely on the market to access nutritious and adequate food to meet their dietary needs. Disruptions in the food systems has the potential to affect such populations. The year 2020 saw the spread of an airborne coronavirus across the globe. Coronavirus or COVID-19 as the virus is affectionately known has adversely affected all aspects of life, from the way people interact to how they communicate, how they work and how they move around. Many countries across the globe have put in place measures to limit both internal and external human mobility during the coronavirus pandemic [21]. Governments across the globe adopted ‘biggest state-led mobility and activity restrictions and this has proven effective in curbing the spread of the virus [32]. Strict lockdowns in the form of complete shutdowns have been implemented with greater emphasis on social distancing, banning of social gatherings and other public activities. Although the lockdowns have proven effective in curbing the spread of the virus, they came at a high cost on the economies and livelihoods of many. They disrupted three main areas of human life, which are loss of income for those working in the informal sector, fall in income from remittances and disruption of food systems [32]. Measures to contain the pandemic are causing a major disturbance to food systems as disruptions to supply and access to food have been witnessed during the lockdown. Livelihoods and income sources are key to determining household access to food and improved welfare. Consequently, these lockdowns have had adverse effects on food security and nutrition especially those working in the informal sector who depend on a hand to mouth. Decline household income due to lockdowns translated to deepening poverty as many could not afford the very basic necessities. Due to these restrictions, World Bank 2020 cited in UNHABITAT [32] estimates that over the next five years, emerging and developing economies could experience drops in output and an additional 100 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty. USAID [33] posits that there is need to prevent this potential widespread of hunger, malnutrition and poverty because if left unchecked may pose a serious threat to the attainment of SDGs 2 and 3. COVID-19 and its response measures have exacerbated various shocks on populations in the informal settlements. The spatial and socio-demographic configuration of informal settlements makes them more vulnerable to COVID-19 spread and poses as threats their livelihoods. Such controls, such as social distancing and regular washing of hands are not practical in such areas given there is limited or no provision of basic sanitation services. UNHABITAT [32] observes that, in urban areas, maintaining acceptable levels of hygiene in houses, work places, shops and public transport are crucial to surviving pandemics. The same dense interaction networks of people that are behind the cities’ potential economic growth accelerators also carry embedded

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risks, such as the spread of diseases and viruses. Hence there is need for proper planning of cities where health becomes a new guiding principle in urban planning. It is posited that for New Urban Agenda to succeed, there is need to incorporate public health as a central consideration in decision-making [34]. Expected health impacts should be assessed during the development of policies and all the planning.

7 Methodology This chapter used secondary data from other studies to assess food supply in the urban areas in Zimbabwe and other urban areas around the globe. Various publications including published journal articles, book chapters, government and international bodies reports. Research reports by different research scholars and universities were also part of the documents reviewed to gather information for this study. Most of the studies reviewed were done using qualitative methods. This strengthened the analysis of this study since some of the results from the documents were quoted verbatim hence giving the actual information as presented by those who participated in the primary data collection.

8 Results Urban agriculture has been regarded as a significant source of household food due to declining incomes in vulnerable urban households. Literature from both developed and developing countries concurs that urban agriculture can be a potential viable policy response to complex challenges of feeding the growing urban population amid declining production in rural areas. Many have commended urban and periurban agriculture for providing urban households with perishable products, such as vegetables. Arku [2] observes that vegetable supplies from within 30 km of urban areas in African countries attributes to 70% of the sources of these foods to urban agriculture. Other than provision of perishables, literature from African countries shows that farmers from African cities focus on producing staple foods, such as maize, cassava, among others. Much of the food produced in urban areas is for household consumption, hence it attributes to household food security and urban food supply. The informal economy has been the lifeblood of many cities in developing countries. However, the nature of informal economic activities makes workers and their families vulnerable. Informal sector requires participants to go to work on daily basis as they depend much on a hand to mouth with little or no possibility of making any savings. Disturbances in their daily economic activities may have lasting effect on their income level, food security and general welfare. Urban planning should therefore consider sustainable ways to assist those in the informal sector to make necessary savings to fall back on in the event that they are not able to work everyday.

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Nutritional improvement is an important contribution of urban agriculture to the vulnerable urban households. Given the epidemic of HIV & AIDS in Africa and that the majority of the affected households are poor, availability of fresh foods from urban agriculture helps in improving the nutritional status of such vulnerable groups. Enhanced food security can then improve adherence to HIV & AIDS treatment, thereby, help in boosting their immune systems and allow them to live healthier. Moreover, producing food within and around cities cut the costs of transportation and this can lead to reduced market prices. As such even the poor populations can afford to buy food on the market and ensure both availability and accessibility of food to all. Regardless of the identified benefits of urban agriculture, it is considered oxymoronic and incompatible with existing land use policies. Urban development and policy did not tap into urban agriculture as a viable strategy to increase food supply and ensuring stable food supply in urban areas. A number of questions regarding the effects of urban agriculture on the environment have been posed. Hallett et al. [18] asked whether urban environments are sustainable for food production. They went on probing that if they are not, should urban agriculture be discouraged or should the environments be remediated so that agriculture can be performed. As such governments and city authorities, especially in African countries do not prioritise urban agriculture as a development initiative. Urban agriculture is therefore, regarded as a public health nuisance and economic activity characteristic of rural not urban economies. As a result, cases of the harassment and lack of support have been reported [2]. In Zimbabwe, city planning systems do not cater for agriculture and it is not classified as an urban activity, hence not backed by any statutory instrument and as such it is regarded as illegal. In a number of cities in the country cases of crop destruction, such as crop slashing were reported. In Zambia, it is officially considered illegal and prohibited by the law. However, authorities tend to turn a blind eye and ignore the activity where it is practiced. Authorities can only show concern in cases where the land in question is required for development or if there is disease outbreak or other problems. Regarding the relationship between the environment and urban production, it has been highlighted that there is a relationship existing. Although positive impacts exist, they vary between regions and influence mainly the level of development of the country in question. In developed countries where resources are in place to support urban farming, it has been realised that urban agriculture can help mitigate the effects harmful chemicals and heavy metals from urban storm runoff [5]. Urban faming has therefore, been proposed as a potential mechanism for remediation of former industrial sites often known as brownfields [18]. Cities are characterized by the phenomenon of urban heat island [7]. This is due to excess greenhouse gas emission due to high levels of human activity. Such challenges can be ameliorated by having enough plants in urban settings. However, such benefits are limited to developing countries whose economic capacities to support such initiatives are minimal. Campbell argues that the value of urban agriculture lies in places other than large scale application. It requires resources that are environmentally friendly and sustainable.

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Due to lack of resources to support extensive farming suitable for urban areas, African cities require large areas of land to practice farming that can produce enough for the growing urban population. However, such space is not available given the limited space in cities and towns. Moreover, access to arable soils in urban areas is limited given that contaminated soil is common place in urban areas. Another effect of food in the urban environment is pollution. The production and processing of food is associated with different types of pollution that disturbs the urban form. Land, air and noise pollution are as a result of food production, processing and marketing [20]. In African cities, urban farming can exacerbate contamination of soil and water given that the current practice still uses chemical fertilizers, synthetic pesticides and industrialized machinery that is known to have negative environmental effects. As such, the practice of urban farming is not supported by many African governments. In terms of food markets in urban areas, there has been reported that the landscape of food production, distribution and consumption has changes over the years. Given these changes, analysis of food security in urban areas should not focus on production only but rather incorporate the aspect of marketing since a larger percentage of urban dwellers source their food from retail outlets. Wiskerk [35] observes that living and eating in cities is linked to the globalised chains of food provision. Processed foods, long distance, food, transportation and supermarkets as food outlets for domestic consumption are on the rise. As the world population grows and the rate of urbanisation increases, diets are also changing. People have changed their dietary preferences and as such they are acquiring food from different parts of the world. Such results show that food consumed in urban areas is produced in different places. With the increased consumption of animal products, urban farming may not produce a larger portion of food consumed especially by high-income households. Prain and Lee-Smith [25] argue that in complex city ecosystems that include informal economies and social networks, poor households depend on multiple income sources. As they strive to earn a living in the urban areas, low-income individuals engage in the informal sector. There are different activities that people partake as a way of earning a living and some are selling food to other low-income individuals. Supermarket revolution has transformed the way in which urban and rural people source their food. Supermarkets now handle 50–60% of food retail and most if not, all food requirements can be obtained from supermarkets. There is however a proliferation of informal food networks and outlets that is now playing an important role in ensuring the availability and accessibility of food in urban areas. These informal food traders have the advantage of serving low-income households as they break bulk and sell food stuffs in smaller quantities that are affordable to low-income households. In spite of the identified advantages, these informal food retailers are regarded as a public health risk in many African countries. Makwanda and Moyo [20] also argue that the catering industry in Zimbabwe has resulted in the increase in food borne illness due to contamination and poor food handling. Communicable disease out breaks are common in many developing countries and containing them becomes a challenge due to these informal and pavement food retailers. Many low-income households turn to these informal traders because they are cheaper as compared to

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the formal markets. This makes low-income households more vulnerable to both ill health and food insecurity.

9 Discussion and Recommendations Attaining food security in urban areas has proven to be a challenge especially among low-income households. As the pillars of food security entail, availability, accessibility, utilisation and stability is crucial for food security to be attained [19]. Production can help individuals and households to improve their food security statuses by making food available to them. As mentioned above, urban agriculture has the potential to improve availability of food to many low-income households in urban areas. However, given that urban food production is not well supported by governments and institutions in African countries, many urban dwellers fail to produce sustainably in their urban settings. Other than production of food, urban dwellers can also access food from the market. However, given the limited incomes in some households, accessing food with dietary requirements to lead a healthy life becomes a challenge. As indicated above, when low-income households fail to afford food from the formal retailers, they turn to informal traders who help them by breaking bulk and sell products in smaller quantities that are affordable. However, such informal food traders are identified as health hazards that perpetuate the spread of communicable diseases. Such has limited the ability of low-income urban households to reduce food insecurity. Affordable ways to ensure food security amongst urban poor are compromised. As food security in urban areas is likely to remain a major challenge. Given the relevance of urban farming in ensuring food security, it is imperative that: • governments and other stakeholders support this practice in order to reduce effects of food insecurities. • development policies and urban planning consider urban agriculture as strategy for poverty reduction and food security especially among low-income urban households. • many urban households acquire their food from retail supermarkets, it is therefore, important to ensure that basic food requirements are accessible especially to the low-income households. Such food stuffs should be subsidised to ensure accessibility.

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11(12):5320–5330 2. Arku G, Mkandawire P, Aguda N, Kuuire V (2012) Africa’s quest for food security: what is the role of urban agriculture?. The African Capacity Building Foundation, Harare 3. Barrett CB (2010) Measuring food insecurity. Science 327(5967):825–828 4. Battersby J, Watson V (2018) Improving urban food security in African cities: critically assessing the role of informal traders. In: Cabannes Y, Marocchino C (eds) Integrating food into urban planning. ULC Press, London 5. Begley NH (2018) The public health and environmental benefits of urban agriculture: an analysis of stakeholder perspectives. University of Washington, Washington 6. Burton P, Lyons K, Richards C, Amati M, Rose N, Desfours L, Pires V, Barclay R (2013) Urban food security, urban resilience and climate change. Synthesis and integrative research final report. National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, Gold Coast 7. Campbell N (2017) Farming cities: the potential environmental benefits of urban agriculture. Duquark in peer reviewed articles 8. Cao Y, Li D (2013) Impact of increased demand for animal protein products in Asian countries: implications on global food security. Anim Front 3(3):48–55 9. Caraher M, Coveney J (eds) (2016) Food poverty and insecurity: international food inequalities. Springer, Cham 10. Chase L, Grubinger V (2014) Food, farms, and community: exploring food systems. University of New Hampshire Press 11. Chazovachii B (2012) The impact of small-scale irrigation schemes on rural livelihoods: the case of Panganai irrigation scheme Bikita District Zimbabwe. J Sustain Develop Africa 14(4):217–231 12. Chihambakwe M, Mafongoya P, Jiri O (2018) Urban and peri-urban agriculture as a pathway to food security: a review mapping the use of food sovereignty. Challenges 10:6. https://doi. org/10.3390/challe10010006 13. Crush J, Hovorka A, Tevera D (2011) Food security in Southern African cities: the place of urban agriculture. Prog Dev Stud 11(4):285–305 14. Dolekoglu C, Gun S (2017) Urban agriculture: search for agricultural practice in urbanized rural areas. Turk J Agric Food Sci Technol (Research Gate Publications) 15. Ephrem A (2019) Integrating sustainability into university curriculum in Tanzania: challenges and prospects. Available online: http://repository.udom.ac.tz/bitstream/handle/20.500.12661/ 2613/Abdon%20Ephrem.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y 16. FAO (2006) World agriculture towards 2030/2050. Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome 17. FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) (2008) Declaration of the high-level conference on world food security: the challenges of climate change and bioenergy. FAO, Rome 18. Hallett S, Haogland L, Toner E (2016) Urban agriculture: environmental, economic and social perspectives. Hortic Rev 44:65–120 19. Harris J, Spiegel EJ (2019) Food systems and resilience: concepts and policy approaches. Center for Agriculture and Food Systems. https://www.vermontlaw.edu/academics/centersand-programs/center-for-agriculture-and-food-systems/projects 20. Makwanda PN, Moyo E (2016) Food safety and violation by food handlers in the food production industry in Zimbabwe. Am J Nutr Food Sci (Sciknow Publications Ltd) 21. Mamun MA, Griffiths MD (2020) First COVID-19 suicide case in Bangladesh due to fear of COVID-19 and xenophobia: possible suicide prevention strategies. Asian J Psychiatry 51(1):1– 2 22. Mudzengerere FH (2012) The contribution of women to food security and livelihoods through urban agriculture in The City of Bulawayo 23. Oluyole KA, Oni OA, Omonona BT, Adenegan KO (2009) Food security among cocoa farming households of Ondo State, Nigeria. ARPN J Agric Biol Sci 4(5):7–13 24. Pachauri R (2008) Climate change and sustainability science. Sustainability Science 3(1):1–3

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25. Prain G, Lee Smith D (2010) Urban agriculture in Africa: what has been learned? In: Prain G, Karanja N, Lee-Smith D (eds) African urban harvest: agriculture in the cities of Cameroon, Kenya and Uganda. Springer; IDRC; CIP, New York (USA), pp 13–35. ISBN 978-1-44196571-4 26. Schipanski ME, MacDonald GK, Rosenzweig S, Chappell MJ, Bennett EM, Kerr RB et al (2016) Realizing resilient food systems. BioScience 66(7):600-610 27. Seekell D, Carr J, Dell’Angelo J, D’Odorico P, Fader M, Gephart J, Kummu M, Magliocca M, Porkka M, Puma M, Ratajczak Z, Rulli MC, Suweis S, Tovani A (2017) Resilience in the global food system. Environ Res Lett 12:025010. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa5730 28. Smit J (2006) The diverse roles of urban agriculture: case study of South Durban Basin KwaZulu-Natal. Department of Agriculture Sciences, Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, Frederiksberg, Denmark 29. Sonnino R (2016) The new geography of food security: exploring the potential of urban food strategies. Geogr J 182(2):190–200 30. Tefft J, Jonasova M, Adjao R, Morgan A (2017) Food systems for an urbanizing world. World Bank, Washington DC 31. Tendall DM, Joerin J, Kopainsky B, Edwards P, Shrek A, Le QB, Kruetli P, Grant M, Six J (2015) Food system resilience: defining the concept. Glob Food Secur 6:17–23 32. UNHABITAT (2020) Impact of COVID-19 on livelihoods, food security and nutrition in East Africa: urban focus. https://docs.wfp.org/api/documents/WFP-0000118161/download/ 33. USAID (2020) COVID-19: shocks on nutrition and potential mitigation USAID guiding principles and recommendations. USAID Nutrition Leadership Council Responsible Office: RFS/CN 34. WHO (2016) Health as the pulse of the new urban agenda: United Nations conference on housing and sustainable urban development Quito, October 2016 35. Wiskerk JSC (2015) Urban food systems. In: de Zeeuw H, Drechsel P (eds) Cities and agriculture: developing resilient urban food systems. Routledge, New York

City Food in Zimbabwe: The Origins and Evolution Tafadzwa Mutambisi and Innocent Chirisa

Abstract Food and health are part of the major policy issues that surround many developing countries especially in Africa. Globally this has been a major highlight through many United Nations agendas, policies and activities. This chapter is based on evaluating and assessing Zimbabwe’s main source of food and its sustainability in catering for the needs of the nation especially in the cities. The effectiveness of the government in the reduction of the high mortality rate is based on promotion of good health and a healthy balanced diet. The chapter makes use of documentary analysis and secondary data to assess the origins of food in Zimbabwe. It therefore, comes up that Zimbabwe is an agro-based economy and was once the bread basket of Southern Africa; however, due to economic, political and environmental factors the cities and their urban areas are suffering from many health issues due to lack of access to basic food that make up a balanced diet. The origin of food in the country is further depicted through the Ester Boserup Theory and Rostow’s Five Stages of Growth as they highlight the development of agro-based economies from traditional societies to modern economies. There is need to investigate the history of origins of city food as it helps to understand and depict a clear picture for policy-makers and other actors on how best to cope with the shortage of food in the developing world, as the past is a vital asset in forecasting for a better future in the cities. There is need for policy-makers to fully explore the available food sources in Zimbabwe and measure their sustainability in current times as they were in the past so as to come up with effective and efficient food policies. Keywords Source · Production · Food markets · Food chain · Rurality · Peri-urbanity · Urbanism T. Mutambisi Department of Architecture and Real Estate, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe e-mail: [email protected] I. Chirisa (B) Department of Demography Settlement and Development, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe e-mail: [email protected] Department of Urban & Regional Planning, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 P. Toriro and I. Chirisa (eds.), Environmental Resilience, Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0305-1_2

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1 Introduction Food security has been the number one priority in Zimbabwe and globally this has been noted in various policy papers including the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, Sustainable Development Goals and Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (ZIMASSET) blueprint implemented by the Zimbabwean Government. Knowing the history and origins of Zimbabwe’s source of food assists policy-makers and developmentalists to enhance food security in the country as it allows policy-makers to learn from the past. Zimbabwe has always been an agro-based economy dating back to the age before colonisation by the British South Africa Company. Traditional societies relied on a wide array of food and diversification of activities to food procurement as evidenced by pastoralists, hunters and gatherers and nomads [15]. Zimbabwe is blessed with good fertile soils that are in abundance. Vast natural resources in Zimbabwe have benefited the country for centuries; however, in this contemporary world that has been affected by political, economic and environmental factors, such as climate change, there is need to revaluate policies and make them relevant to the current environments that they exist in. Natural resources are non-renewable and scarce therefore, there is need to understand and asses the history of their origins to be able to learn more about their preservation and conservation in the creation of resilient and sustainable cities [8]. The environment, soil, water, minerals, plants, land and animals are very complex resources with dynamic systems that change often in subtle ways that are difficult to perceive. Thus, this chapter seeks to depict the history of food origins of the cities in Zimbabwe following its natural regions. If this chapter is little understood it becomes difficult for environmentalists, health practitioners, urban planners and other actors in city development to understand the grave importance of conservation of the county’s natural resources in the food security sector. The study was conducted using the mixed-methods research approach that was mainly conducted through documentary analysis and mainly used data from secondary data sources. The chapter’s main focus is on the types of foods that are consumed by the majority of the population that are indicators of the ability of the cities in Zimbabwe to sustain themselves. Through the assessment of the patterns and systems of food production and policies that have been managing food distribution over the years in the urban areas the study was able to explore the importance of knowing the origins of food in the cites and illuminating the significance of food for cities sustenance in Zimbabwe [21].

2 City Food and the New Urban Agenda Cities have developed many solutions, such as establishing mechanisms for the engagement of different actors in-order to push food and nutrition on the foci of development. This has been clearly highlighted in the New Urban Agenda which

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was adopted by the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) in Quito, Ecuador, on 20 October 2016 [42]. The New Urban Agenda firmly describes the evolution of food production and the new strategies that have to be implored in food provision in a rapidly urbanising world [42]. It has been discovered in the new agenda that by 2050, the world’s urban population is expected to nearly double, making urbanization one of the twenty-first century’s most transformative trends [5, 42]. Therefore, this paper supports the New Urban Agenda through the evaluation of the trends from the past. It helps to review how best to cater for food in cities in the future as the world is expected to be 90% urban in the next coming years. This study examines how various socio-economic and environmental changes have affected production of food. The New Urban Agenda observes that populations, economic activities, social and cultural interactions, and environmental and humanitarian impacts, are increasingly concentrated in cities, and this poses massive sustainability challenges in terms of food security [42]. It is imperative to trace the past so as to come up with innovative and sustainable ways of providing food security in the future. Food security is defined as the availability, accessibility and accessibility of food at all times [23]. Therefore, food security is ensured only when enough food is available, all persons have the capacity to buy food at acceptable quality and when there is no barrier to access food. The New Urban Agenda seeks to improve resilience of cities to various environmental disasters that hinder the attainment of food security. These disasters include climate change, floods, drought risks and heat waves [45]. Assessment of past food chains, production and regulatory processes reveals trends on how equity and equality in cities and gender issues contribute to food security in Zimbabwe. Thus, this chapter seeks to contribute to the implementation of The New Agenda through the investigation of the origins of city food as it helps to understand and depict a clear picture for policy-makers and other actors on how best to cope with the shortage of food in the developing world.

3 Theoretical Underpinnings The study makes use of Rostow’s Five Stages of Growth theory, Esther Boserup’s theory and the rural and urban linkages concept of agricultural systems. This will assist to depict the growth of Zimbabwe as an agriculturally based economy from the traditional society to the current modern society looking at the factors that have helped the agricultural system to evolve over time. Rostow’s Five Stages of Growth Theory is a theory propounded to describe the Five Stages of Growth that is followed by states from the traditional society to the modern society. The theory articulates transitions to the modern world were technology is used as an asset to achieving a modern economy. The first sage is the traditional societies where the society is marked by their pre-Newtonian understanding of technology and its use. Thus, these people are mostly hunters and gatherers. The second stage has the preconditions for take-off where there is a degree of capital

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mobilization enabled by secular education [1]. The third stage is the take off stage that describes a society that is dominated by sector led growth, economic processes rather than traditions. The drive to maturity stage is the fourth stage and this describes a society that has a diverse economy that is self-sufficient and has low levels of poverty and good standards of living. The age of high mass consumption, is the last stage. It refers to the period of contemporary comfort afforded by many western nations, wherein consumers concentrate on durable goods and hardly remember the subsistence concerns of previous stages (Self-sufficiency system Administrator 2011). This theory is vital in this chapter as it describes the stages of agricultural growth in Zimbabwe that has made up the county’s economy [33]. Due to the complexity of many political, environmental and social development and management issues countries, such as Zambia, have failed to grow following all the stages listed in the theory but it does depict the first stages of the growth of the country as an agrarian society. Ester Boserup Theory observes that necessity is the mother of invention, this means that as population increases, the human race will evolve, create and innovate ways of surviving through new ideas and innovations from the growing population this includes new technology like the Green Revolution [11]. This theory is vital in assessing and exploring the origins of food in Zimbabwean cities as [37] points out that this theory observes the role that is played by; political organisation, technological innovation, land use intensification introduce elasticity into agricultural systems. Zimbabwe has an agro-based economy that has evolved over time due to different factors, such as population growth, technological innovations that came with colonisation [7]. The decline in agricultural productivity and increased population growth in cities due to the drought of the early 1990s and urbanisation affected the availability of food in the country. This is in line with Boserup’s findings as she observes that increased population densities in areas have a dual effect on the life of sustaining natural resources [14]. Rural–Urban Linkages are vital in assessing food in the cities due to the contemporary trend of urbanisation that is taking place globally [3, 5]. In future, most of the people will be living in urban areas thus, it is absolutely necessary to concentrate on building sustainably in urban areas. the rural areas however, should be included as they are the source of food for cities in Zimbabwe [12, 38]. As urbanisation continues to occur in major cities and towns many people are now settling in city hinterlands and also peri urban areas resulting in overcrowding in urban centres[9], this chapter’s main focus in on the rural and urban linkages and their effects on food in the cities. Many issues concerning urbanization link with food production, hence, the more the people live in cities, the more the need to increase food production. Food production is mainly done in rural areas where there is agricultural land and the city is the market for the food produced [18]. However rapid population growth, urbanisation, resource constraints are putting enormous pressure on agriculture and forests, that are crucial to food security and livelihoods [38]. There is need to rethink rural and urban linkages for the sustenance of food in cities as they keep urbanising.

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4 Literature Review “Mankind did not weave the web of life. We are but one strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves... All things are bound together”—ChiefSeattle [8]. The above statement by the Chief of Seattle indicates that we live in a system that is fragile and needs to be managed wisely so that wastage of available resources is limited [26]. There are increasing cracks that are occurring in the capacity and capability of communities, landscapes and ecosystems to provide resources that provide and sustain the planet’s wellbeing [26, 39, 46]. One of the key sources of food is land as it allows for agriculture to take place that produces food crops and allows animal rearing through grazing [43]. Agriculture can be described as the process through that food is produced through the use of land, soils and vegetation [4]. The food produced includes grain, fruits, fibres, vegetation and feed for animals, such as domesticated cattle [8]. For quite some time, food production has been considered beyond the sphere of competence of cities, primarily due to the fact that food is normally produced outside the city limits where there is land in abundance for agriculture [20]. In Europe, the recognition of the new role that local authorities can play in the development of sustainable food systems has become very common. This can be done through development of activities and also structuring food policy framework and systems [5, 14]. Many states are forced to make food security their main priority as it is vital for the survival of humans. Food security can be defined as, ‘a situation where people have a stable source and physical or economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that is able to meet their dietary needs and food preferences so as to live a healthy and active life’ [23]. In many Southern African countries, food security is directly linked to agricultural production [19]. There is a huge relationship between agricultural production, poverty, drought or flooding, shifting climatic patterns and changing demographics as they all can enhance or limit access to safe and healthy food while lack of food security can also cause various diseases to spread thereby, enhancing poverty [10, 44, 45]. One of the major determinant of agricultural production, national and household food security is access to adequate and suitable land (Sustainability, Stability and Security Initiative 2018). Most smallholder farmers have inadequate landholdings of poor quality that may sometimes lack proper tenure rights. This affects production in many cities in the global south especially in Zimbabwe as the country is mainly dominated by small subsistence farmers than commercial farmers thus affecting food security at a household level [29, 31]. Zimbabwe is physically challenged as it is a landlocked country is and therefore, must import and export goods through neighbouring countries and its staple food is maize followed by wheat [7, 23]. People’s eating habits are influenced by intellectual fashions and cultural change thus, the over reliance on maize as the backbone of the cities’ diets has caused many detrimental factors to the economy and the nutrition of many societies in the city [6]. This increases production costs and cost of food commodities on shelves in retail shops. There are a number of factors that also affect food production and climate change is one of these [16, 28, 45]. Zimbabwe has

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faced a number of recurrent droughts, poor growth of the economy, foreign exchange shortages, stagnant employment, inadequate investment and large structural budget deficit that has greatly increased the rate of poverty in the country, the cities and rural areas vulnerable to food insecurity [7, 29, 40]. More so, the agricultural marketing policies in the country have greatly affected the production of the country’s staple food that is maize, wheat and other controlled crops. This has been due to unintended market distortions. There is little or no incentive for farmers to produce yield that can be used for commercial purposes, many farmers in Zimbabwe are only managing to produce crops for their own subsistence needs [12].

5 Results and Analysis Zimbabwe is rich in natural resources that are the backbone of the nation’s economy as well the main source of food [15]. Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector is a vital component to its overall economic development, the main source of food availability at the national level and a primary source of food and income for most households [7, 23]. Its basis on agriculture dates back to centuries ago when the settlers in Zimbabwe,that is the Shona, Ndebele, Zezuru, Venda and many other ethnic groups relied on hunting, gathering, agriculture and livestock rearing [36]. The coming in of missionaries in the eighteenth century brought new innovations including; new crops, such as watermelons and mixed breeding in cattle [8]. The arrival of the BSAC company in the early nineteenth century leading to colonisation saw the white settlers mapping Zimbabwe’s present day commercial farms in areas where there is fertile and arable land leading to mass production of agriculture making Zimbabwe the bread basket of Southern African in the 19th Century [30]. Zimbabwe is thus, divided into agro-ecological zones that are categorized into five broad regions that are based on vegetation, soil quality, rainfall and generally decline in land resource quality from Natural Region I down to Natural Region V. Natural Region I: The region is in the eastern highlands, covers rainfall of 1,000 mm per year and covers the smallest area of the five regions, at 7,000 km2 , or 2% of Zimbabwe’s land area. It is dominated by specialized and diversified farming and best suited for forestry, dairy farming, coffee, tea, fruit, beef and maize production. Natural Region II: The region has rainfall ranging from 750–1,000 mm per year and includes a greater proportion of the three Mashonaland Provinces that cover at least 58,600 km2 or 15% of Zimbabwe’s land area. The region is suitable for intensive farming; typically for tobacco, maize, livestock and cotton. Natural Region III: This mid-altitude region receives rainfall of about 650– 800 mm per year and covers 72,900 km2 , or 19% of the land area. The occasional dry spells and the moderate rainfall are suitable for marginal growing conditions for tobacco, maize, cotton and is also suitable for livestock and cash crops. Natural Region IV: This is a region that has low elevation and it characterised by rainfall that ranges from 450 to 650 mm per year and covers 147,800 km2 , or

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38% of the land area. It experiences erratic rainfall that results in very low agricultural production that mainly focuses on drought-resistant staples, fodder crops and livestock. Natural Region V: Is the driest region as it receives marginal rainfall of about 450 mm per year. It covers approximately 27% of Zimbabwe’s land and it is in the south western part of the country. Cattle/game ranching is suitable for this region with the grazing natural pasture available [4, 8 40] (Fig. 1). Due to climate change some regions have been shifted to other regions due to minimum rainfall over the years and seasonal shifts [27]. Zimbabwe’s main agricultural products are sorghum, maize, wheat, millet, cotton, cassava, coffee, tobacco, peanuts, sugarcane and livestock. Regions that have fertile and arable land in abundance are the ones that mainly grow the main crops that are maize and wheat and the less arable parts of the country in the southern and western zones grow sorghum and millet [8]. The main crops that are produced and make up the country’s diet is maize followed by sorghum and millet. Maize typically accounts for 80–90% of domestic staple production, with sorghum and millet. Before the industrial decline in the early 2000s, Zimbabwe was once self-sufficient in agricultural production that it even produced surplus that was exported to other countries, such as Zambia and

Fig. 1 Zimbabwe’s agro-ecological regions. Source FAO Global Information and Early Warning Systems, 2008

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Ethiopia [4]. However, since 2001 maize production has significantly dropped such that it has affected the country’s economy and its GDP as maize was also exported to other countries as a source of foreign currency. This can be attributed to the series of droughts that occurred in the early 1990s the ESAP and political instability and industrial decline that followed right after, maize production never fully recovered from then [8]. Traditional foods have been the backbone of the country’s nutrition in cities and urban areas mainly for indigenous communities for the longest time, this has provided food security for the people in Zimbabwe [34]. However, with the introduction of technology and modern cash crops, traditional foods have been marginalised, they have lost value as they have been displaced by commercialised hybrid food crop varieties [41]. However, maize still remains the staple food of the people [25, 34, 35]. There are four distinct farming systems in Zimbabwe and these are determined by agro-ecological factors, tenure systems, farm sizes, crop and livestock production systems, levels of technology use, management and income levels and political and historical developments [9, 24]. These systems are communal lands, resettlement areas, small-scale commercial and large-scale commercial [13]. The Zimbabwean economy relies more on agriculture for food security, however, only 11% of the total land is arable. Agriculture dominates only 20% Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 66% of the national labour force [23]. This highlights that the country’s population is solely dependent on agriculture. However, with the current economic situation and changes in climate change, it is evident from the above statistics that many people are focusing on a food source that is only producing little for them to feed on and neglecting other sources of food. This is further supported by [23, 34], as they reveal that despite the contribution of agriculture to the economy the country still suffers from a maize deficit, even in contemporary Zimbabwe today the evidence of maize deficit is overwhelming as evidenced by people waiting long queues to buy mealie meal [23] further guess that there is need to increase production for more drought tolerant small grains, such as sorghum and millet, to mitigate the dependence on seasonal and regular rainfall especially in marginal areas. As the economy of Zimbabwe deteriorates, people rely on traditional foods; however, changes in climate and technological growth has crippled traditional cultural values and food habits leading to the reduction of the use of traditional foods thereby opening a pathway to poverty as most people in the cities of the global south cannot access processed foods sold in the retail shops [16, 41, 45]. Urban food environments can substantively, change even by lenient standards that provide generous allowances for stability [21, 17]. Relying on maize as the staple food in Zimbabwe is causing a number of health problem including malnutrition. Maize still accounts for half of national calorie intake and this mono-diet contributes to recent national measurements of undernourishment from 30 to 39% of the total population [23, 29, 32]. The culture of making maize the staple food is becoming a curse more than it is a blessing as the people have become solely reliant on maize as the staple food while neglecting other food sources that are healthy. Knowing the origins of food in the cities in Zimbabwe will help

City Food in Zimbabwe: The Origins and Evolution

25

policy-makers to try and break the cycle by promoting diversification of food sources besides maize. Already maize is becoming a scarce commodity due to unreliable rainfalls in the country. Introducing other alternatives for food will assist the cities to become resilient to malnutrition and other diseases and reduce pressure on the market for maize as it has become difficult for the government to export it from neighbouring countries due to foreign currency deficits. Increased food prices for basic commodities have been the order of the day. Table 1 clearly highlights the rate at which urbanisation is taking place in Zimbabwean cities and towns. There is need to rethink food production and availability so as to ensure food security especially when there exists a number of binary systems in the cities brought about by urbanisation, such as the formal versus informal and the core versus the periphery binary system. Urban incomes from both formal and informal employment have been and continue to highly erode due to the steep increase in prices of basic commodities thus, the urban population is finding it extremely difficult to obtain food. There are no schemes that offer food at subsidized prices. This is a critical issue in the city as many cities are located in regions that do not support much agricultural production. Also due to limited space in the city centre growing of crops in the urban areas that can sustain the people at household and even district level is difficult. This has been a great catalyst in hikes in food prices. It does not help that there are reported cases, though not verified, of political parties distributing food and sugar, flour to party members or order regular shops to sell basic commodities at controlled prices [41]. This becomes a major problem as processed foods are more expensive than traditional foods.

6 City Food and the Coronavirus Pandemic Despite the various trends of climate change that have threatened food security in Zimbabwe, recently a new pandemic has risen that has also disturbed the economic balance of the world. This pandemic is termed COVID-19/ Coronavirus. Discussions of past and future trends under food security push governments to consider the issue of food security in the face of the Coronavirus pandemic. Food security is present in a city if the food is available, accessible at all times [23]. Therefore, food security is ensured only when enough food is available, all persons have the capacity to buy food at acceptable quality and when there is no barrier to access food. The coming in of the COVID-19 virus has changed the way people access food. The virus has limited face to face interaction and it has forced people living in cities to succumb to limited contact. This has slowed down businesses and is causing deterioration of the food market. Climate change, political issues and rapid urbanisation has changed agricultural production in Zimbabwe over time. The country no longer produces as much as it did twenty years ago. Therefore, importation of food commodities from countries, such as South Africa, has become the norm for the past decade. According to the African Union [2], the Coronavirus pandemic has slowed down import and exportation of goods thus global prices for key food commodities, such as rice and

Harare Mashonaland Central Midlands Matabeleland South Midlands Harare Mashonaland West Matabeleland North Mashonaland West Mashonaland West Mashonaland West

Gokwe

Gwanda (Jawunda)

Gweru (Gwelo)

Harare (Salisbury)

Harare Western Suburbs (in: Zvimba District)

Hwange (Wankie)

Kadoma (Gatooma)

Kariba

Karoi

Harare

Chitungwiza

Glendale

Masvingo

Chiredzi

Epworth

Manicaland

Chipinge

Matabeleland North

Bulawayo Mashonaland West

Mashonaland Central

Bindura

Mashonaland West

Matabeleland South

Beitbridge

Chinhoyi (Sinoia)

Mashonaland West

Banket

Chegutu

Province

Name

Table 1 Zimbabwean Urban centres by regions

IV

IV

IV

IV

IV

IIA

III

V

III

IIA

IIA

IIA

V

IIB

IV

IV

IV

IIA

V

IV

Region

8,748

12,364

44,613

39,036

…

656,011

78,918

4,874

…

…

…

172,556

10,257

6,077

24,322

19,606

413,814

18,243

…

…

Population Census (C) 1982–08-18

14,763

20,736

67,750

42,581

…

1,189,103

128,037

10,565

7,418

7,174

…

274,912

21,116

11,582

43,054

30,191

621,742

21,167

11,596

7,963

Population Census (C) 1992–08-18

22,383

22,726

76,351

34,950

15,556

1,435,784

140,806

13,184

17,703

9,798

114,067

323,260

25,849

16,539

48,912

43,424

676,650

33,637

22,136

9,845

Population Census (C) 2002–08-18

(continued)

26,009

26,112

91,633

19,870

…

1,485,231

154,825

19,895

23,906

…

167,462

356,840

30,197

25,214

68,273

50,255

653,337

42,861

41,767

…

Population Census (C) 2012–08-17

26 T. Mutambisi and I. Chirisa

Matabeleland South Midlands Manicaland

Plumtree (Mangwe Urban)

Redcliff

Rusape (incl. Tsanzaguru)

Adapted from: FAO Global Information and Early Warning Systems, 2008

Matabeleland North

Mashonaland West

Norton

Midlands

Mashonaland Central

Mvurwi

Zvishavane (incl. Mining Area)

Mashonaland East

Mutoko

Victoria Falls

Manicaland

Mutare (Umtali)

Midlands

Mashonaland East

Murehwa

Shurugwi (incl. Mining Area)

Mashonaland West

Mount Hampden

Mashonaland East

Mashonaland West

Mhangura Mine

Mashonaland Central

Masvingo

Masvingo (Fort Victoria)

Shamva (incl. Shamva Mine)

Masvingo

Mashava Mine

Ruwa (incl. ZimrePark)

Matabeleland North Mashonaland East

Marondera (Marandellas)

Midlands

Kwekwe (Que Que)

Lupane

Province

Name

Table 1 (continued)

III

IV

III

IIA

IIB

IIB

III

V

IV

IIA

IIB

IIB

IIB

IV

IV

V

V

IIB

IV

III

Region

26,597

8,126

13,255

4,617

…

8,216

22,109

…

…

…

4,829

69,621

…

…

…

30,523

…

19,971

…

47,607

Population Census (C) 1982–08-18

32,984

16,826

16,138

…

…

13,920

29,959

6,228

20,405

6,026

5,380

131,367

…

…

11,175

51,743

15,507

39,384

…

75,425

Population Census (C) 1992–08-18

35,128

31,519

16,863

9,437

22,155

22,741

32,417

9,923

44,397

8,096

9,611

170,466

11,750

9,245

5,747

69,490

12,315

51,847

2,523

93,608

Population Census (C) 2002–08-18

45,230

33,660

21,501

908

56,678

30,316

35,904

11,626

67,591

10,548

12,336

186,208

…

…

2,930

87,886

5,859

61,998

2,211

100,900

Population Census (C) 2012–08-17

City Food in Zimbabwe: The Origins and Evolution 27

28

T. Mutambisi and I. Chirisa

wheat, can also impact many African countries as prices might go up. Thus, prices might evolve so much that it might threaten food security as the pandemic has caused the inaccessibility of food to many people especially in the in formal sector. This is because many people living below the overtime line will not be able to afford a basic quality and balanced meal.

7 Discussion It is clear that many cities in Zimbabwe depend more on agricultural produce to survive. Agriculture is seen globally as one of the most important use of the land’s natural resources [8]. However, there is lack of diversification over sources of food and the process and management of acquiring the food in the country. The changing and ever complex physical, political and economic environments are making it difficult for policy-makers and other actors in development to cope with agriculture as the main food source for the people in the cities. There is need for policy-makers and other actors in development to evaluate the position of maize as the staple food as it is now difficult for the nation to grow due to recurring droughts and climate change. The environment that used to be favourable for maize and wheat production 30 years ago is no longer the same. There is need to rethink other sources of food rather than waiting for very few commercial farms to produce food that cannot cater for more than a ¼ of the population. Assessing the origins of city food in the past, present and future may assist policy-makers to make a trend that may be able to assist in evaluating the best suitable food sources for that time period looking at the social, economic and environmental changes and deciding the best possible solutions that can befit those environments as what worked 30 years ago might not be suitable to apply in this era. Lack of a clear management system in the country is a major challenge that needs to be addressed so as to clearly articulate and implement efficient food policies, as food in the cities rely on agriculture. Unclear land and tenure systems are detrimental in food sustenance of cities in the country [22, 43]. Zimbabwe has never had neither a clearly articulated agricultural policy nor one on food security until 2002 [29]. By this time, the country was already facing an economic crisis that lasted for more than five years creating an environment that makes it difficult for food policies to actually take shape and improve the livelihoods of the people. Food security is mainly centred on wheat for bread and maize for sadza. People have stuck around this diet as it was readily available; however, diversification of diets can also be very difficult as alternative sources of food, such as potatoes are difficult to produce and they only become important when maize production falls short [29]. The government may choose to import food but the rising prices in fuel and lack of foreign currency may hinder this initiative making it very difficult for the people in the cities to get access to basic commodities as they would be sold at a high price.

City Food in Zimbabwe: The Origins and Evolution

29

8 Conclusion This chapter sought to clearly articulate Zimbabwe’s main source of food for the people living in cities. Agriculture has been the core activity that has facilitated food in Zimbabwe for centuries. Food production in the 19th Century has never been a problem due to many factors, such as good climatic conditions and excellent management both by the early states in Zimbabwe and the colonialists. However, after independence in 1980, the first five years were fruitful as the status of the breadbasket of Southern Africa was maintained. Deterioration of food production slowly began after 1985 due to a number of political, economic and social factors and this has threatened the health and wellbeing of the Zimbabwean citizens. The changing and ever complex environment in Zimbabwe needs policy-makers to reflect on the source of food for cities. It also prepares for the future as the rural areas and city hinterlands that were the sources of agricultural production and are slowly turning into urban areas. The coming in of the Coronavirus pandemic also needs policy-makers to readjust and shape their policies in line with the new way of living under COVID-19 restrictions. Policies should also be shaped in line with The New Urban Agenda. Assessing the origins of city food in the past, present and future may assist policy-makers to also make a trend that may be able to assist in evaluating the best suitable food sources for that time period looking at the social, economic and environmental changes and deciding the best possible solutions that can befit those environments as what worked 30 years ago might not be suitable to apply in this era.

References 1. Peet R, Hartwick E (1999), Theories of Development, New York: Guilford Press 2. African Union (2020) Impact of the Coronavirus (covid 19) on the African Economy 3. Angelo H (2016) From the city lens toward urbanisation as a way of seeing: country/city binaries on an urbanising planet. Urban Stud 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098016629312 4. Baudron F (2011) Agricultural intensification—saving space for wildlife? (PHD thesis). Wageningen University, Wageningen, NL 5. Bhagat RB (2018) Urbanisation in India: trend, pattern and policy issues. International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai. Working Paper No 17 6. Bryan E, Akpalu W, Yesuf M, Ringler C (2011) Global carbon markets opportunities for Sub Saharan Africa in agriculture and forestry Elizabeth Bryan, Wisdom Akpalu, Mahmud Yesuf & Claudia Ringler. Climate Dev 2:309–330. https://doi.org/10.3763/cdev.2010.0057 7. Carmody P (1998) Neoclassical practice and the collapse of industry in Zimbabwe: the cases of textiles, clothing, and footwear. Econ Geogr 74:319. https://doi.org/10.2307/144328 8. Casper J, Kerr, (2007) Agriculture: the food we grow and animals we raise. Chelsea House, New York 9. Chirisa I (2013) Housing and stewardship in peri-urban settlements in Zimbabwe: a case study of Ruwa and Epworth. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.16420.07042 10. Dahiya B (2012) Cities in Asia, 2012: demographics, economics, poverty, environment and governance. Cities 29:S44–S61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2012.06.013 11. Desiere S, D’Haese M (2015) Boserup versus malthus: does population pressure drive agricultural intensification? evidence from Burundi. In: Presented at the 89th annual conference of the

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T. Mutambisi and I. Chirisa agricultural economics society. University of Warwick, England, Department of Agricultural Economics, Ghent University, Belgium FAO (2017) Strong rural-urban linkages are essential for poverty reduction Fertilizer use by crop in Zimbabwe [WWW Document], n.d. https://www.fao.org/3/a0395e/ a0395e06.htm. 3 Jan 20 Fischer F, Miller G, Sidney MS (eds) (2007) Handbook of public policy analysis: theory, politics, and methods, public administration and public policy. CRC/Taylor & Francis, Boca Raton Gomez MI (1988) A resoure inventory of indigenous and traditional foods on Zimbabwe. Zambezia XV Government of Zimbabwe (2014) Zimabwe’s national climate change response strategy Van Heerden JJ (2016) Sustainable mining communities post mine closure: critical reflection on roles and responsibilities of stakeholders towards local economic development in the city of Matlosana (,). Stellenbosch University, South Africa Hussein K, Suttie D (2016) Rural-urban linkages and food systems in sub-Saharan Africa: the rural dimension. IFAD Hwedi O (2001) The state and development in Southern Africa: a comparative analysis of botswana and mauritius with angola. Malawi and Zambia 5:13 Jain A, Courvisanos J (2009) Urban growth centres on the periphery: Ad Hoc policy vision and research neglect. Australas J RegNal Stud 15:24 Lucan SC, Maroko AR, Patel AN, Gjonbalaj I, Abrams C, Rettig S, Elbel B, Schechter CB (2015) Changein urban food enviroment: storefront sources of food/drink increasing over time, and not limited to ‘Food Stores’ and restaurants Mabhena C, Moyo F (2014) Community share ownership trust scheme and empowerment: the case of gwanda rural district, matabeleland south province in Zimbabwe. IOSR J HumIties Soc Sci (IOSR-JHSS) 19, 72–85 MacNairn I (2014) Zimbabwe food security brief. In: International Development Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), Zimbabwe Man JY (2011) Affordable housing in China. Land Lines, pp 16–20 Mapuva J (2015) The controversies of devolution in Zimbabwe. Int J Polit Sci Dev 3, 183–192. https://doi.org/10.14662/IJPSD2015.025 Mata J, Fabra ZS (2009) Users’ Guide on Measuring Fragility Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate Republic of Zimbabwe (2013) Zimbabwe’s fifth national report to the convention on biodiversity Moutinho P, Schwartzman S (eds) (2005) Tropical deforestation and climate. Mudimu G (2004) Zimbabwe food security issues paper for forum for food security in Southern Africa Munzwa K, Jonga W (2014) Urban development in Zimbabwe: a human settlement perspective. Theor Empir Res Urban Manag 120–146 Mwase DT (2016) An examination of the impact of mining activities on the livelihoods of female small holder farmers in Zvishavan District. University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe Pswarayi F, Mutukumira AM, Chipurura B, Gabi B, Jukes DJ (2014) Food control in Zimbabwe: a situational analysis. Food Control 46:143–151 Rodríguez JP, Beard Jr TD, Bennett EM, Cumming GS, Cork SJ, Agard J, Peterson GD (2006) Trade-offs across space, time, and ecosystem services. Ecol soc 11(1):6–13 Shava S, O’Donoghue R, Krasny ME, Zazu C (2009) Traditional food crops as a source of community resilience in Zimbabwe. Int J Afr Renaiss 4. https://doi.org/10.1080/181868709 03101982 Sibanda N (2013) The evolution of decentralisation policy in developing countries : a policy analysis of devolution in Zimbabwe (Masters Thesis). University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa Silber T (2011) The Kariba REDD + Project Soby S (2017) Thomas malthus, ester boserup, and agricultural development models in the age of limits. J Agric Environ Ethics 87–98. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-017-9655-x

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38. Steinberg (2014) Rural-urban linkages: an urban perspective. In: Document No 128. Working group: development with territorial cohesion, Rimisp, Santiago, Chile 39. Sustanability, Stability and Security Initiative (2018) A rising Africa in a fragile enviroment the initative on sustainability, Stabiity and Security 40. Swinkels R, Norman T, Blankespoor B, Munditi N, Zvirereh H (2019) Analysis of spatial patterns of settlement, internal migration, and welfare inequality in Zimbabwe. World Bank Group 41. Tawodzera G, Chigumira E, Mbengo I, Kusangaya S, Manjengwa O, Chidembo D (n.d.) Characteristics of the urban food system in Epworth, Zimbabwe ; and (2019), Urban poverty project working paper No 9 42. UN, (2017) New urban agenda. United Nations, Quito, Ecuador 43. UN-HABITAT (2018) Land and conflict lessons from the field on conflict sensitive land governance and peacebuilding (No. 2). United Nations Human Settlements Programme 44. UNDP (2018) Strengthening biodiversity and ecosystems management and climate-smart landscapes in the Mid to Lower Zambezi Region of Zimbabwe 45. UNDP (2017) Climate change and human development: towards building a climate resilient nation 46. USAID (2018) The intersection of global fragility and climate risks

Urban Food: An Examination of the Policy and Legislative Framework Percy Toriro

Abstract Laws are some of the most important and effective instruments used by governments to regulate different areas of citizens’ lives. They are powerful because there are consequences associated with breaking laws. The intention of legislation is to create societies where all people are compelled to do what is good. The assumption inherent in legislation is that ‘laws serve the common good’. This however, is not always the case in reality. There are good and bad laws. This chapter analyses Zimbabwe’s regulatory framework to assess its impact of the urban food system. The data was collected by reviewing the relevant laws, by-laws, policies and plans used in the regulation of the urban food system. The examination reveals that most Zimbabwean laws are very old and have not been regularly reviewed to reflect contemporary challenges and the socio-economic reality. They are not responsive and cannot respond to pandemics, such as the COVID-19. They have not been adapted to meet the objectives of the New Urban Agenda (NUA). Some of the most frequently used laws were enacted for a different era and no longer effectively serve under the current circumstances. The study also reveals that the laws are negative and aim to control and stop rather than facilitate innovation and encourage compliance. It concludes that Zimbabwean authorities must consider a new innovative people-centred approach to enacting legislation to govern livelihoods in general and the food system in particular. Keywords Regulation · Management · Food markets · Compliance · Hygiene · Policy environment

1 Introduction This chapter examines Zimbabwe’s laws to assess how the different laws, policies and land use plans affect the urban food system. One of the most utilised tools in managing land use is the policy and regulatory framework. The chapter considers only those laws and policies that regulate land use or are used by Zimbabwean planners in their management of the urban food system. The chapter reviews and P. Toriro (B) Municipal Development Partnership for Eastern and Southern Africa, Harare, Zimbabwe © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 P. Toriro and I. Chirisa (eds.), Environmental Resilience, Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0305-1_3

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P. Toriro

discusses the selected laws, policies and plans to assess whether they facilitate or constrain any food system component or activity. The chapter unpacks Zimbabwe’s legislative framework with the objective of assessing whether they assist in promoting a sustainable food system and conform with global development objectives, such as the New Urban Agenda or they serve to constrain the possibility of sustainable food systems. Several legislative and policy documents were used during the review and included the following: Constitution of Zimbabwe [12], the Regional Town and Country Planning Act [13] the Urban Councils Act [14] the Environmental Management Act [10], the Public Health Act [15], the Shop Licenses Act [17], the Zimbabwe National Water Authority Act (GoZ 2000), Harare (Protection of Marginalized Land) By-laws (GoZ 2014), the Harare Master Plan (CoH 1993), the Nyanga Declaration [23], the Harare Declaration (2003) and the Urban Agriculture (UA) Policy for City of Bulawayo (CoB 2008). The chapter argues that Zimbabwe’s laws take a typically negative approach. They also are old and have not been reviewed to reflect the contextual reality. They are not responsive and do not help cities quickly adapt to pandemics, such as COVID-19. As a result, they are now out of sync with the socio-economic reality and unnecessarily increase enforcement work for city governments whilst punishing small-scale food system players. The laws also impact on all aspects of the urban food system negatively thereby, affecting pricing and availability and ultimately the sustainability and efficiency of the system.

2 Literature Review Laws have been defined as regulatory instruments crafted by the legislature that ‘proscribes, or commands’ certain expectations in managing a state subject [35]. Different aspects of any food system, such as production, processing, retailing and even waste management are regulated by different laws, by-laws and policies [9]. The general objective of doing this is to create a safe, efficient and competitive food system. Zimbabwe’s regulation of the urban food system has been criticized by some scholars as rigid and inappropriate [24, 33, 38]. Traders that sell food in the central business district of Harare have had to endure running battles with the police as raids were reported to occur sometimes [37, 39]. Despite the fact that the role of street food traders is documented as positive to the economy and important to the many workers that patronize the service, they are also said to violate municipal and state laws [24]. The traders are therefore, subjected to raids and arrests as prescribed by the regulatory framework. In recent years, the municipality has even employed more police officers to deal with informal traders in the city centre of Harare [34, 37]. In a study of Harare, Rogerson (2016) posited that considering the observed actions of authorities on the informal traders, their future looked ‘bleak’. Planning for sustainable and food secure cities will require a lot more innovation and flexible instruments [27].

Urban Food: An Examination of the Policy and Legislative Framework

35

In many cities across the world, all aspects of the food system, such as spaces for food production, processing, marketing, transportation and so on, are regulated using different laws [9]. This is all supposedly done in the sometimes abused but often referred to planning principle of public interest [5]. The law is therefore, supposed to be useful in providing checks and balances that ensure that food spaces are healthy and settlements remain orderly [40]. In many jurisdictions the regulations are not pro-poor and tend to regard most of their food provisioning efforts as illegal rather than facilitate a pro-poor local economic development approach [29]. Fresh food spaces are in many jurisdictions governed a lot more strictly than other food spaces [25, 26]. More specifically, the regulatory framework has tended to affect different aspects of the urban food systems differently. In many cities in Africa, food production outside one’s own land, also known as off-plot urban agriculture is regarded as illegal [24–32]. This differs with on-plot urban agriculture that is more tolerated in most cities [44, 36]. In many cities, regulations do not reflect the lived reality of communities [41]. Regulations governing fresh food preparation, handling and trade however, tends to be stricter than other food system areas in most urban areas [2, 24, 38]. Whilst literature shows that the regulatory framework has been documented in relation to food, there however, is no comprehensive work that focussed on how laws affect urban food systems within a global South perspective. This work seeks to address that gap in knowledge.

3 Emerging Issues This section examines the selected laws to assess their relevance and impact on the urban food system. In Zimbabwean urban areas, three pieces of legislation stand out for their broader roles in governance of urban areas. These are the Regional Town and Country Planning Act: Chapter 29: 12 [13], the Urban Councils Act: Chapter 29: 15 [14] and the Public Health Act: Chapter 15: 09 [15]. The Regional Town and Country Planning Act (Chapter 29: 12) is a law for ‘conserving and improving the physical environment and in particular promoting health, safety, order, amenity, convenience and general welfare, and efficiency and economy in the process of development and the improvement of communications’ ([14] Preamble). Urban Planners who are the main players in imagining and managing the built environment in Zimbabwe consider this preamble to the Act as containing the guiding principles.1 Actions to stop cultivation of food crops in town, remove food traders from some sites, arrest vendors in the streets and any other measures taken to manage the city and, in the process, the urban food system are all justified as being done to fulfil the objectives of planning as outlined in the Act. 1 The

author attended the 2018 Annual School of the Zimbabwe Institute of Regional and Urban Planners where there was overwhelming consensus amongst planners that this paragraph of the Act summarizes the objective of the profession of Urban Planning in Zimbabwe.

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Whilst the Regional Town and Country Planning Act is directly concerned with the planning of the built environment, the Urban Councils Act (Chapter 29: 15) is for the general administration of urban areas. The Act provides for the creation of urban areas and confers different statuses on urban areas depending on size and functions. The law also gives urban local governments certain powers. This includes powers to plan, administer and create by-laws for the management of different aspects of urban settlements. This includes all components of the urban food system, such as regulation of food production. For example, the Act in Section 198(3), urban councils are given powers to farm city land with the aim of food production. They also can run or regulate meat abattoirs and spaces for the ‘inspection, grading, storage and treatment of agricultural produce’. According to the same section, they also must ‘provide markets for the sale of agricultural produce and carry on the business of dealing with agricultural produce’ ([13]: 134). The law therefore, manages all components of the urban food system. Where the law is not adequate, the councils are empowered by this Act to enact subsidiary legislation to regulate all activities. The Public Health Act (Chapter 15: 09) provides measures to manage all food system components with the objective of preventing the spread of diseases. The law compels municipal authorities to institute ‘lawful and necessary precautions’ [15] to ensure that there are no ‘outbreaks of any infectious or communicable or contagious diseases’ ([38]: 75). The Act also seeks to prevent the contamination of food along the whole food system by creating regulations for regular inspection of areas where meat is processed and also where food is prepared. The measures include the regulation of people that work in areas where food is handled and prepared. This law affects all components of the food system since there are public health issues throughout the system. Perhaps the most difficult requirement is the one requiring all personnel working in food spaces to undergo regular medical checks including expensive radiological examinations. Whilst this is good in the interests of public health, small-scale and informal operators find these requirements beyond their reach and fail to comply. There are a few other laws that also affect the food system. These include the country’s Constitution [12], the Shop Licenses Act [17], the Zimbabwe National Water Authority Act (GoZ 2000), the Environmental Management Act [10], Harare (Protection of Marginalized Land) By-laws (GoZ 2014), the Harare Master Plan (CoH 1993), the Nyanga Declaration [23], the Harare Declaration (MDP, 2003) and the Urban Agriculture (UA) Policy for City of Bulawayo (CoB 2008). The constitution of the country only generally governs food by giving a right to food and clean water. This is potentially a powerful and important clause to stop food insecurity. However, since the constitution came into being in 2013, there is no evidence that the people are more food secure. The Shop Licenses Act requires all traders to be licensed. The conditions an operator must comply with prior to licensing are however, stringent and can only be met by formal large businesses (GoZ, 1975; 1989; 2002). Similarly, the requirements under the Environmental Management Act are difficult and expensive to comply. Some of them are unreasonable for the informal traders. For example, all buildings used must comply with the Model Building by-laws [18], a regulation that has been deemed

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out of sync with today’s socio-economic reality [38]. The Zimbabwe National Water Authority Act sets stringent conditions for accessing water that many people drill boreholes and wells illegally. Some end up not accessing the water at all. This has implications on the quantity and quality of food grown and processed. The Harare Master Plan is an example of a regulatory document with positive clauses that were not implemented. The clauses for the planning for the informal sector and small-scale businesses is positive. Policy and Strategy (v) commits to: ‘Create conducive conditions and provide accessible sites for use by small-scale emerging business persons and designate areas where income generating activities can be combined with residential use on individual stands in order to mop up the existing abundant marginal labour resource and as a means to encourage and tap selfinitiative of individuals within the population’ (CoH 1993 obtained from [38]: 86). Unfortunately, such positive clauses have not been fully implemented. Very few such spaces were created and so, the problems of inappropriate and inadequate spaces for the informal and small-scale food system operators persist. There are two policies that have been pronounced by urban governments in Zimbabwe. The first one is the Nyanga Declaration on Urban and Peri Urban Agriculture that was enacted in 2002. The 29 urban local authorities of Zimbabwe met in the resort town of Nyanga for the Urban Councils Association of Zimbabwe (UCAZ) annual conference. They discussed on the merits and demerits of urban agriculture. They resolved to support and facilitate urban food production in their towns as complementary to rural food production. This was significant since many urban areas resorted to destroyed crops grown in towns as a way to stop people from doing so. Unfortunately, since this declaration was made, very few cities have gone on to incorporate urban food production in their planning and so many remain ambivalent to the practice [38]. The only major city that has taken measures to develop appropriate policies and plans is the City of Bulawayo. They developed a policy framework and plans for managing urban food production (CoB 2008). The Harare by-laws regulating the trade of food are sadly very negative and only seek to stop rather than facilitate operations of small-scale operators. Harare (Protection of Marginalized Land) By-laws (GoZ 2014) and others that seek to regulate vending are increasingly becoming more draconian because city officials think that is the only way of stopping uncontrolled vending.2 With a few exceptions, this has been the pattern of Zimbabwean regulatory framework’s approach to managing urban food systems. A common thread of Zimbabwe’s regulatory framework is that almost all laws are control-focussed rather than facilitatory of food systems. The laws were enacted to control and anticipate whatever could go wrong in the food system. They are largely negative in that they focus on what should not be done. A more positive approach could be to state what is desired and take an approach to help all players in the system to work towards compliance. The law assumes stakeholders have a propensity to do 2 Interview

with a Harare City Planning official. The official indicated that the only way to stop vendors was tightening the by-laws and employing more staff responsible for monitoring vendors and arresting them.

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wrong things and must be punished for that. Maybe Zimbabweans must adopt a new positive approach that prescribes what is desired and encourages everyone to achieve that. Most Zimbabwean laws are old and were enacted during the colonial days and were meant to serve a different era. The Regional Town and Country Planning Act was revised in 1996, but really retains most of the clauses in the original act of the 1940s. The 1976 and 1996 amendments were very minor cosmetic changes that only removed racial clauses and in other instances merely replacing where the country was referred to as Rhodesia with Zimbabwe. The spirit and letter of the law remained the same. The system these laws sought to regulate is different from that prevailing today. This is true of the Public Health Act and the Urban Councils Act and other laws. This is problematic. To appreciate this one must refer to McAuslan who revealed that the problem with most laws governing African cities today is that, they were products of a uniform law that was transferred to all colonies long back and remain remnants of the same laws [22]. The laws did not consider the contextual differences of the different colonial cities and some of the problems we face today reflect that disconnection between the source of the laws and the target. Many of the laws are very old. As indicated above they were enacted long back for a different era. More importantly, they have not been regularly changed to reflect changing circumstances. Zimbabwe’s laws have remained stuck in time. Figure 1 shows the years in which most of these laws were initially enacted. Many local and

Fig. 1 Zimbabwe’s Laws and Policies affecting the urban food system showing the years in which they were initially enacted Source [38]: 88.

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global changes have not been reflected in these old laws and so they can no longer effectively and positively regulate Zimbabwe’s urban food system. The disconnection between the existing laws and reality must be addressed to create working and sustainable food spaces. The new business of law enforcement agencies and planning authorities are self-inflicted as they are caused by the irrelevance of most laws governing food. In a study of informal traders in central Harare, city authorities were seen to be unsustainably investing in additional manpower and equipment to fight small traders. This was causing problems for everyone; residents could no longer access the food they want from places they were used to getting it from; meanwhile traders were incurring a lot more costs in trying to respond to increased municipal raids; at the same time, it was also straining the council in terms of additional costs and strained relations with citizens [37]. The increasing irrelevance of the laws is impacting negatively on all stakeholders including the custodians of the regulations. There must be a new approach to regulating urban food systems that is democratic and sustainable.

4 Lessons Learnt This analysis has taught us that laws must be relevant to the areas that they seek to regulate. A point has been made above that most laws envisioned a formal and large-scale food system. This was true of Zimbabwe up until the 1990s. The effects of the 1990s economic structural adjustment programme (ESAP) were that many large industries and other businesses closed down when the country was opened up to international competition. The strong local industry that had thrived whilst shielded from global competition buckled under imports pressure. There were massive retrenchments from most companies as businesses shrunk. The people that were being laid-off had skills and innovated by starting small-scale industries that were mainly unregistered and operated informally. When this happened, there was no change of laws. The new situation continued to be regulated by the old laws that assumed large formal industries. That is part of our regulatory challenge. The laws are regulating an environment that is different from that which they were created to govern. They are no longer relevant hence, make the food system unsustainable. Another lesson learnt is that laws must not only be flexible but contextual if they are to be responsive to changes. One example is of the changes in the processing of maize meal in Epworth. Historically, Zimbabwe’s maize meal was processed in large milling companies in the heavy industrial areas. This was reflected in the town planning laws and land use zones. In the 1990s, the milling of maize-meal and the trade in maize was deregulated from state control and monopoly milling. Other players including individuals invested in the milling sector by purchasing grinding mills. Mbiba’s seminal work documents this phenomenon very clearly. He noted a rise in grinding mills being established in Zimbabwe’s urban areas [21]. This rise was also being attributed to rising costs of formally supplied mealie meal. A more recent study found more grinding mills in Epworth alone than existed in all Zimbabwe’s

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urban areas in 1993 [38]. Another example is the COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictions to movement of people that was introduced as a measure to reduce the spread of the coronavirus. Existing laws have not been adaptive enough as some key food supply chains are informal and are not recognized by the law. This has limited food options at a time that international and other distant sources of food are not available. The rise in the use of grinding mills as an alternative processing means for the staple maize meal is however, under threat as the laws continue to view milling as a heavy industrial use that must be located in the heavy industrial zone. Yet, so much has changed. The new grinding mill is a small machine similar in size and impact to a domestic standby electricity generator. Many grinding mills in Epworth are housed in small rooms measuring 3 m by 3 m in size and operated by one individual. They are situated in residential areas and along major communication routes for convenience to people. They are owned by individuals and serve a population of almost 200 000 residents. But the planning law and land use plans continue to classify this new mill as the traditional milling machine that was industrial and was operated by thousands of employees. As a result, 90% of grinding mills operating in Epworth are illegal in terms of planning law [38]. The laws are not responding to the changing context. They continue to assume a formal large-scale set up that is no longer reality. Recent developments in the street trade of food and other products has taught us that bad laws and actions can cost everyone. The recent increase in raids and arrests of vendors in Harare’s city centre has impacted negatively on everyone. A recent study has revealed that whilst vendors are losing much business due to the city’s increased enforcement of its by-laws, the city is not spared. The Harare City Council has lost equipment due to damage as the vendors have fought the raids. Some employees of the city council have been injured in the process. It is also costing the city much fuel and other material costs. Relations between the municipality and the public have also been damaged [37]. All stakeholders have been injured as a result of the use of the laws that are not friendly to small-scale food system operators. The above example of the unsustainable costs incurred by everyone as the city council implements bad regulations suggests that other means of resolving the issue be explored. Confrontation has not worked. Best practice regarding small-scale traders and local governments suggest that engagement is better than confrontation. No one has won in the case of the City of Harare and the central business district shared above. The City of Harare must engage the representatives of vendors in central Harare so that they can jointly agree on how and where to trade including mutually agreed rules. Once this is done and all stakeholders’ buy in is sought and obtained, enforcement can be supported by all since it will be based on agreed parameters. Before this position is reached, different parties see each other as ‘them’ and ‘us’ hence do not support but rather take actions to safeguard their interests. It is argued that most laws are old and out of context with Zimbabwe urban food systems’ new reality. The laws need to be replaced and one example will be used to illustrate the point. The Public Health Act is a good law. It aims to safeguard people’s health and prevent diseases. It was however, enacted to regulate large-scale and formal businesses at the beginning of the twentieth century. Today, the Zimbabwe

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economic structure has changed considerably. Most businesses are now small-scale and informal. They are the ones driving the country’s economy and affecting the urban food systems. It has been shown that ninety percent of Epworth’s grinding mills are illegal yet, serving the 200,000 people of Epworth. The residents of Epworth deserve a functional food processing system. They would want their health safeguarded, but they must have access to food. Surely the laws must reflect that reality. It is possible to have new laws that protect the people in a manner that is possible within their contextual reality. The failure of the laws to domesticate global urban development expectations, such as the NUA has disadvantaged residents. Food security and livelihoods are not supported by the laws as they remain rigid.

5 Discussion Zimbabwe is a strictly regulated country. It has many laws, by-laws, policies, statutory plans and strategies to manage urban areas and in the process, the food system. There are however, a number of challenges with the regulatory system. This section discusses the manner in which the regulatory framework impacts the urban food system. Prices are increased as a result of the laws and the cat and mouse games between authorities and traders. Some of the requirements within the laws stated above place a premium on the prices of food. One requirement of food selling spaces is that they must be approved in terms of the building by-laws. A requirement of the bylaws is that when trading in food, a place must have running water. This has been interpreted to mean a municipal tap connected to a reticulated water supply. Yet this may not necessarily be the only way. A flexible set of rules can achieve the same objective by requiring food vendors to have clean water in a bucket with a tap where clients and operators can wash their hands. Public health and personal hygiene can be achieved without applying one standard. If the applied standard is unaffordable, it increases costs of food or it forces traders to operate illegally. Authorities should aim to enact regulations that the majority can afford so that there is compliance. It is also recommended that regulations are embraced by many. Authorities can only control what they know; if many are discouraged from complying and are forced to operate underground, it is a disadvantage to society. Authorities can only control what they know and so it is in public interest to have all stakeholders working with authorities. When authorities and traders do not work together and conflicts exist, the food markets become insecure and there is uncertainty. Imagine the situation of a resident of Harare that consumes traditional pumpkin plant leaves sold by a vendor on the streets of Harare. If the selling point is contested and this trader operates outside of the law, the consumer will not always find the trader at the same space. It becomes an insecure market and their probability of finding their desired food every time is low and uncertain. If the trader sometimes loses their produce to municipal police, they may charge more to cover for the losses. Such markets can also become unhealthy.

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Traders may hide their produce in drains where the food can become contaminated with pathogens and other bacteria that expose the consumers to diseases. This calls for all stakeholders to work together to create safe, convenient and orderly markets. Planners and other agents of authorities are encouraged to be creative in meeting the livelihood needs of traders. The issue is more than just complying with laws and keeping streets clean; it is about creating varied, inclusive, healthy and sustainable food systems. The people’s innovations and entrepreneurial spirit is being criminalised rather than encouraged. Many people in the global South do not wait for authorities to provide for them. They create their own opportunities and, in the process, serve other people. Most small-scale players in the urban food system are unemployed people in the formal sector that have created own employment in the informal sector [1]. They are innovative and entrepreneurial. They are not waiting for authorities to provide them with a job. They must be encouraged rather than discouraged and criminalised. With high and increasing levels of unemployment and urban poverty, these traders are part of a solution rather than the problem. They have already demonstrated capacity to work, innovate and solve society’s challenges. They are therefore, an ally in finding solutions to the many urbanisation challenges confronting cities of the global South today. Planners and city managers must find ways to harness these people’s energy and business acumen. Such an approach will help bring joint solutions to city problems. Authorities have prescribed solutions for many years without success, maybe it is time they consider other views. Ultimately, a new way of regulating cities that prioritises existing principles of order, amenity and public health and locates these within our contextual reality is the answer. Planners and city managers aim to achieve order, amenity and public health in cities. This is all supposed to be in public interest. Yet these agents of the authorities do not take time to ask themselves whose public interest they are serving. If ninety percent of the residents get their food supply from informal sources and also engage in informal activities, whose public interest are they serving when they destroy tuckshops that sell food and chase from the street vendors supplying stuff otherwise unavailable in formal shops? If low-income industrial workers are buying affordable food from a truck and have so for years without health problems, whose public interest are officials serving when they arrest such food suppliers? Chasing away the vendors or arresting them is not in public interest if the majority of the city’s residents rely on them to provide food or alternative food. The food supplier selling affordable lunches to low-income industrial workers is not a problem but providing a solution. The issue should be how can the vendor operate in a way that does not interfere with other businesses or expose customers to diseases. Health authorities can bring solutions by working with the small traders and not criminalising them. There must be rules and regulations. But these rules and regulations must recognize the context in which the majority exists. Planning and management that does not recognize contextual realities of citizens are out of place and will not work. The order that comes from forcefully removing traders without considering broader livelihood issues will only be temporary. Progressive cities seek sustainable and inclusive solutions. City visions must be shared and should be within what is

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practically achievable considering the city’s socio-economic reality. Otherwise the good intentions of planning and its attendant tools, such as the law, can be lost if planned cities are not going to accommodate everyone [43, 42].

6 Conclusion The chapter started by reviewing literature that showed that laws are a universally accepted governance tool. The food system is well-regulated to a point of being over-regulated especially fresh food handling. This is done with the important goal of ensuring that residents are not exposed to diseases and pathogens. Zimbabwe also has a well-regulated food system and its legislation can be traced back to its colonial history. Problems are arising with the rigid regulatory framework that is not responsive to emerging challenges. The laws, by-laws, policies and plans governing the urban food system are old and have not been reviewed over a long period to reflect contemporary realities and global urban development objectives. Where there have been changes, these have not been comprehensive enough to capture and reflect people’s lived reality. The laws have not incorporated and reflected the contextual reality of Zimbabwe’s urban food system. They also ignore the socio-economic realities of rapid urbanisation and the NUA amidst high levels of poverty and unemployment. Due to this disconnect between reality and the spirit and letter of the existing laws, they no longer serve today’s public interest. The chapter therefore, recommends that: • the laws be reviewed comprehensively in a new way. This new way must incorporate inclusive people-centred approaches that considers the lived reality of the majority of Zimbabwe’s urban citizens. • Laws be crafted that prioritise order and public health in Zimbabwe’s urban food systems whilst ensuring that the standards are within the reach and aspirations of locals. • The laws must be responsive and enable city managers to effectively deal with new shocks, such as the coronavirus pandemic.

References 1. Battersby J (2018) Cities and urban food poverty in Africa. In: Bhan G, Srinivas S, Watson V (eds) The Routledge companion to planning in the global south. Routledge, New York 2. Chukuezi CO (2010) Food safety and hygienic practices of street food vendors in Owerri Nigeria. Stud Sociol Sci 1(1):50 3. City of Harare (1993) Harare Combination Master Plan. Harare, City of Harare 4. CoB (2008) The Bulawayo Urban Agriculture Policy. Approved policy document for City of Bulawayo. 5. Faludi A (1973) A reader in planning theory. Pergamon, New York

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GoZ (2000) Zimbabwe National Water Authority Act. Government Printers, Harare GoZ (2000) The Zimbabwe National Water Authority Act. Government Printers, Harare GoZ (2014) Harare (Protection of Marginalized Land) By-laws. Government Printers, Harare Godfray HCR, Beddington JR, Crute IR, Haddad L, Lawrence D, Muir JF, Pretty J, Robinson., S, Thomas, S.M. and Toulmin, C. (2010) Food security: The challenge of feeding 9 billion people. Sci J 327(5967):812–818 Government of Zimbabwe (2003) Environmental management act [Chapter 20: 27]. Government Printers, Harare Government of Zimbabwe (2002) Food safety and food standards act [Chapter 20: 27]. Government Printers, Harare Government of Zimbabwe (2013) Constitution of Zimbabwe. Government Printers, Harare Government of Zimbabwe (1996) Regional, town and country planning act [Chapter 29: 12]. Government Printers, Harare Government of Zimbabwe (1996) Public health act [Chapter 15: 09]. Government Printers, Harare Government of Zimbabwe (1996) The urban councils act [Chapter 29: 15]. Government Printers, Harare Government of Zimbabwe (1975) Town and country planning handbook. Government Printers, Harare Government of Zimbabwe (1976) Shop licenses act [Chapter 14: 17]. Government Printers, Harare Government of Zimbabwe (1977) Model (Building By-Laws). Government Printers, Harare Government of Zimbabwe (1989) Public health (Butchers Regulations). Government Printers, Harare MDP (2003) The Harare Declaration on Urban and Peri Urban Agriculture. MDP, HarareMunicipal Development Partnershhip Mbiba B (1995) Urban agriculture in Zimbabwe: implications for urban management and poverty. Avebury, Aldershot McAuslan P (2003) Bringing the law back: essays in law and development. Ashgate, London Municipal Development Partnership (2002) The Nyanga declaration on urban and peri-urban agriculture. Policy document signed by Zimbabwe’s urban councils in Nyanga, August 2002. Harare, MDP Njaya T (2014) Operations of street food vendors and their impact on sustainable urban life in high density suburbs of Harare. Zimbabwe. Asian J Econ Model 2(1):18–31 Okojie PW, Isah EC (2014) Sanitary conditions of food vending sites and food handling practices of street food vendors in Benin City, Nigeria: implication for food hygiene and safety. J Environ Public Health 2014:1–6 Omemu AM, Aderoju ST (2008) Food safety knowledge and practices of street food vendors in the city of Abeokuta Nigeria. Food Control 19(4):396–402 Parnell S, Pieterse E, Watson V (2009) Planning for cities in the global South: an African research agenda for sustainable human settlements. Prog Plan 72(4):195–250 Rogerson, C.M., (2016) Responding to informality in urban Africa: Street trading in Harare, Zimbabwe. Urban Forum, 27(2): 229-251 Rogerson CM (2018) Towards pro-poor local economic development: the case for sectoral targeting in South Africa. Local Econ Dev Chang World 75–100. Routledge Simatele D, Binns T (2008) Motivation and marginalization in African urban agriculture: the case of Lusaka, Zambia. Urban Forum 19:1–21 Smit W (2016) Urban governance and urban food systems in Africa: examining the linkages. Cities 58:80–86 Smith DW (1998) Urban food systems and the poor in developing countries. Trans Inst Br Geogr 23:207–219 Tawodzera G (2010) Vulnerability and resilience in crisis: urban household food insecurity in Harare, Zimbabwe. Doctoral dissertation, University of Cape Town

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34. The Herald (2018) ‘Council recruits police officers’. Newspaper report in Herald, 18 August 2018 edition 35. Thomas M (ed) (2014) Blackstone’s statutes on property law 2014–2015. Oxford University Press, USA 36. Toriro P (2007) Urban and peri-urban agriculture: towards a better understanding of lowincome producers’ organisations: a study of City of Harare, Zimbabwe. Municipal Development Partnership Eastern and Southern Africa, Harare 37. Toriro P (2019) Resilience under sustained attack from the police: will Informality survive? J Urban Syst Innov Resil Zimb 1(1&2) 38. Toriro P (2018) Food production processing and retailing through the lens of spatial planning legislation and regulations in Zimbabwe. PhD thesis, University of Cape Town 39. Toriro P (2014) The sources of food items being traded informally in Harare CBD: assessing the footprint of Harare’s informally sold food. In: Unpublished paper presented at the urban informality and migrant entrepreneurship in Southern African Cities workshop, 10 February, Cape Town 40. University of Minnesota-extension (2016) Regulations that impact local food production. https://www.extension.umn.edu/rsdp/community-and-local-food/local-food-policy/regula tions-that-impact-local-food-production/. Accessed 13 January 2020. 41. Watson V (2003) Conflicting rationalities: implications for planning theory and ethics. Plan Theory Pract 4:395–408 42. Watson V (2014) African urban fantasies: dreams or nightmares? Environ Urban 26(1):215–231 43. Watson V (2009) The planned city sweeps the poor away: Urban planning and the 21. Prog Plan 72:151–193 44. De Zeeuw H, Drechsel P (2015) Cities and agriculture: developing resilient urban food system. Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, New York

Food Processing, Handling and Marketing in Zimbabwe Emily Motsi

Keywords Food production · Food market · Post-harvest management · Food security · Utility · Scale

1 Introduction An adequate supply of food that is nutritious, safe and affordable is required by every individual, family and community for a healthy and productive life. Food access, availability and utilisation are in turn also critical to ensuring food security at national and household level. Food handling, processing and marketing are essential to the curbing of food losses that occur in the food supply chain and to the enhancement of the nutritive content, safety, palatability and shelf-life of food available to all people. The review describes developments in the handling, processing and marketing of food in rural and urban communities in Zimbabwe. It explores the post-harvest management and processing of food commodities, such as maize, fruits and vegetables, produced by smallholder rural farmers and the growing population urban dwellers undertaking urban farming. Key issues emerging from this review are that efforts still need to be made to reduce food losses emanating from the postharvest and handling and processing of food. Food processing at small-scale level is still using traditional technology that hampers increases in output and value addition. There is also very little evidence of utilisation of emerging technologies in the processing of food within the medium and large-scale food processors.

E. Motsi (B) Department of Art Design and Technology Education, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 P. Toriro and I. Chirisa (eds.), Environmental Resilience, Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0305-1_4

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2 Literature Review The aim of the review is to draw from literature and highlight the post-harvest practices of rural and urban farmers and the extent of maize, fruit and vegetable processing and marketing in Zimbabwe. The fair-sized amount of multidisciplinary literature utilised in this review focused mostly on post-harvest management, processing and marketing in the grain and horticulture sector. Limited literature was available for exploration of the livestock, aquaculture (fish farming) apiculture (bee-keeping) sectors. In this review, food processing is defined and its links to food security are highlighted. A discussion of the range of post-harvest, processing and marketing activities of rural and peri-urban farmers, formal and informal traders in the grain and horticulture sector is presented. Issues emerging in the handling, processing and marketing of food are also discussed. Finally, the review is concluded by highlighting lessons learnt and the implication this has to food systems in Zimbabwe. Food processing is one of the three components of a food system. It’s being an aspect of a food system entails examining it holistically in its role in the provision of food to rural and urban populations. Definitions or descriptions of food processing found in literature usually bring out two key functions. In the first instance food processing is viewed as a process that facilitates the production of food that is safe, palatable and has an extended shelf life [23]. Secondly, it is considered an important process in the agro-industry value chain creation, where through various post-harvest activities value is added to produce before marketing [59]. Food processing is a set of methods and techniques used to turn raw plant and animal agricultural produce into consumable food. It is inevitably a branch of manufacturing (at small or large-scale) where raw materials are transformed into intermediate food stuffs or edible products through application of scientific (and indigenous) knowledge and technology. There are varying differences in how pertinent issues around food processing are approached in literature. Discussion around the processing of food particularly in developing countries tend to focus on issues relating to food security, post- harvest strategies and value chain creation. Discussions of food processing in literature with a western context tends to have a different angle of emphasis, focusing mainly on issues relating to contribution of emerging technologies to the food-health impact [28] and the increasing consumer demand for transparency on how food is processed [50] (Katz and Williams 2011). Food security is highly instrumental to the economic growth and sustainability of any country [1]. Food security is a state in which all people at all times have both physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for a healthy active life [7]. Historically the global and African food security agenda has been based on a premise that viewed food insecurity as a problem that affects rural populations [6]. With an increasingly large majority of the world’s population now living in urban areas, urban food security has become an emerging globally development issue. The New Urban Agenda recognizes food security and nutrition as one of the major challenges for cities and local governments [55]. The New Urban Agenda which is being implemented as a

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key instrument towards sustainable urban development within the United Nations’ overall 2030 development framework [11] calls on national and local governments to promote the integration of food security and nutritional needs of urban residents (particularly the urban poor) in urban and territorial planning in order to end hunger and malnutrition [54]. Many cities across the globe are adopting various strategies and initiating different activities that are contributing to ensuring food secure cities in the implementation of the New Urban Agenda. These include the promotion of urban gardening/farming, and access to healthy food within local environs, development of food charters, school feeding programmes and integrated food planning strategies and policies [55]. Strengthening of urban-rural linkages, food waste management, and facilitating access to healthy food choices in food deserts are the other strategies utilized in implementing the New Urban Agenda [55]. Despite the fact that these strategies and activities are contributing to effective implementing of the NUA, they are however being realised within the context of a debilitating COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 was first declared as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) by the World Health Organisation on 30 January 2020 [57]. The acute respiratory viral disease was finally characterised by WHO as a pandemic on 11 March 2020 in order to emphasize its gravity and spur all countries to take action in the prevention and control of the disease [14, 57]. To curb the spread of the coronavirus, the World Health Organisation recommended a series of containment measures (the WHO Non Pharmaceutical Intervention (NPI) protocol for public health-care settings) that included nationwide lockdown measures through restricting movement and maintaining social distance [42]. Though the containment measures were effective in curbing the spread of the virus and related deaths [56] they had a severe impact on food systems, livelihoods of particularly urban dwellers, income opportunities for those in formal and informal employment and consequently food security and nutrition. The COVID-19 pandemic has had an effect on each of the four-food security dimension (i.e. availability, access, utilization and stability) in varying degrees of severity particularly in developing nations. Restricted movements and closure of country borders has impacted negatively on food availability through restriction of the supply of food products in urban food markets and disruption of traditional channels of sourcing food [9]. Lockdown restrictions have also affected access to food particularly among the urban poor who may not be able to acquire adequate quality food, particularly access to fresh and nutritious food products and consequently healthy eating [9]. Failure to access food due to COVID-19 containment measures has been associated with increased consumption of cheaper more readily available low-nutrient dense food [13]. This has effects on health as the body ends up utilizing high calorie and low nutritional value nutrients. Restriction of movement of global and regional air and road transportation has created food instability situations by affecting many countries’ net food imports while local road transportation restrictions have contributed to food instability through disruptions in the distribution of food from rural to urban food markets.

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Food processing plays a critical role in food security. It is required to optimise nutrient availability and food quality, increase useful life of food and reduce loses and waste [3]. So, through proper food handling, processing and marketing practices sufficient, safe and nutritious food can be availed to people. The main causes of food insecurity in Africa related to food processing include the use of inadequate and inefficient processing and preservative techniques, food spoilage and infection [1]. In Zimbabwe, a major contributory factor to food insecurity is the use of traditional food processing methods and storage structures that are ineffective in reducing postharvest losses [33]. Achieving food security is thus, dependent on the knowledge and technology used in processing, value addition, storage, transportation and marketing of agricultural produce [33]. Historically, food processing has played a crucial role in the food system from production to consumption. Traditionally food processing practices, such as salting, drying and fermenting, were developed for solving problems of long-term storage and transportation of food. In Africa traditional food processing and preservative activities constitute a vital body of indigenous knowledge handed down through the generations [44]. These however, need to be upgraded to improve food availability. Later, development of heat and freeze treatment technologies, such as pasteurisation, refrigeration, contributed effectively to making food safe to eat through reducing the effects of spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms [28]. During the 20th century emerging food processing technologies have been used to increase the palatability of food and production of indulgent food products [28]. In Zimbabwe, traditional food processing methods, such as drying, salting and smoking continue to play a major role in providing food for people in rural and urban settings. Sun-drying is the most common traditional food preservation technique used in Zimbabwe. The drying methods used to preserve food used by rural producers are generally the same as those used in urban settings [33]. However, the reasons for using the drying technique tend to be different among rural and urban producers, with rural producers using the method more as a way of ensuring that households are food secure whilst urban producers use it by choice for immediate consumption of the food [33]. Traditional food processing techniques are often criticised for being rudimentary and limiting the large-scale production of food to meet the food needs of growing populations in the African continent [1]. Agriculture is the backbone of economies in most countries in sub-Saharan Africa. In Zimbabwe, the agricultural sector is a critical sector in terms of economic growth and development [41]. The sector is well diversified with over 20 types of food and cash crops and a livestock sector primarily producing beef, dairy, poultry and piggery [29]. Key food commodities produced in the Zimbabwean agricultural sector include food grain crops, such as maize, wheat; oil-seed crops, such as soya beans, groundnuts and horticultural produce, such as fruits and vegetables. Grain crops account for over half of Zimbabwe’s cultivated land area and overall agricultural output [29]. Grain crops provide more than half of the countries caloric intake and are therefore, an important vehicle for attaining domestic food security in Zimbabwe [29]. Maize is the most important grain crop in Zimbabwe and is a staple food for the majority of rural and urban population. Farmers in both rural and urban areas

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produce maize as a means to enhance food security. In processing, maize goes through five post-harvest stages that include harvesting, drying, shelling, storage and marketing [33]. The common post-harvest practices in harvesting of maize grain include removal of the maize crop from the field between the month of March and May. The time for harvesting is usually determined by the degree of maturity of the crop, harvesting before maturity heightens the risk of loss through mould development leading to decay of the grain seeds [26]. Lack of appropriate locally produced harvesting tools and equipment are the main challenges hampering the harvest process. Though various modes of transporting the maize, such as use of scotch-carts, wheelbarrows and head-carrying and hired trucks are commonly used for moving grain from the field to the home, several research studies for example [31] still report transportation as another major challenge rural farmers face at harvesting stage. Shelling of maize is usually a female related activity. It is an activity that is done manually though various aids e.g. plastic cone-shaped hand shellers have been invented to speed up this labour-intensive process. For drying of maize grain different vernacular structures are used for the lengthy drying of the harvest [33]. Most of these structures are unroofed thereby, exposing the harvest to depredation by birds, small rodents and wandering livestock. This can result in high loss of the maize grain. Before storage maize grain is tested for storable moisture content. Different practices are used for this process and most of these are based on indigenous knowledge systems. This is followed by the application of commercial grain protectants. The major issue experienced by farmers at this stage is that insect pests remain a problem post chemical grain treatment due to chemical ineffectiveness or improper insecticide use [26]. For storage maize is usually packed in new or used polypropylene bags and traditional grain storage facilities, such as pole structures and woven baskets are commonly used for long-term storage of the grain in the rural areas. In urban areas, bags of grain are commonly stored in living rooms. Traditional methods of grain storage are being criticised for being inadequate in offering protection against insects [33]. Post-harvest food loss (PHL) is defined as measurable qualitative and quantitative food loss that occurs along the food supply chain from harvest till consumption [17]. Quantitative food loss refers to the decrease in weight or volume of edible grain or food while qualitative food loss relates to the reduction in nutrient value, or unwanted changes to the taste, colour, texture and cosmetic features of food [4]. High post-harvest food losses are a major factor constraining the achievement of food and nutrition security in Africa. Calls have been made in different quarters for the attainment of ‘zero loss’ of food. According to Sadza et al. [48], zero loss entails minimisation of food losses during storage and transportation through utilisation of locally relevant technologies. Food losses do however, occur along the whole length of the food supply chain. In sub Saharan Africa, more than 40% of food losses occur at post-harvest and processing level, while in industrialised countries more than 40% of food loss occurs at consumer and retail level [8].

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Table 1 Causes of post-harvest losses in the maize supply chain Stage

Example of loss

Cause

Harvesting

Grain spillage

Poor transportation containers from field to homestead

Drying

Mouldy grain

Grain not dried to safe moisture content

Shelling/Threshing

Broken/split grain

Rough handling of grain during threshing causing mechanical damage

Farm/market Storage

Defective grain -Grain contaminated with foreign organic matter (tassels, maize cob core), inorganic matter e.g. stones, filth e.g. dead insects. -Insect and rodent damage

Poor storage arrangements that allow entry of foreign matter Inadequate quantity and improper application of grain protectants

Source Hodges and Stathers [18]

FAO [8] estimates that post-harvest losses for cereal grain in sub Saharan Africa are around 18%. Two main factors are identified in literature as causing grain losses. Grain loss occurs as a result of being scattered or split during post-harvest handling or when the grain is subjected to bio-deterioration through agents, such as insects, mould and rodents [19]. The first factor leads mainly to weight loss while the latter results in both weight and quality loss. Loss of quality tends to have significant economic impact i.e. loss of value during marketing and may also have impact on food safety and nutrition security when grain is condemned as unfit for human consumption [20]. Table 1 provides a list of common causes of post-harvest losses in cereal grains, such as maize. As reflected in Table 1, losses occur at each stage in the handling and processing of the maize grain. The causes maybe interrelated as action or lack of it at one stage of the supply chain may be the precipitator of post-harvest loss at another stage. Also reflected in Table 1 is an array of quantitative and qualitative losses that are mainly caused by wrong or poor post-harvest practices and handling of maize grain. These include rough handling of grain during threshing, inadequate drying of maize and poor packing and storage.

3 Strategies in Reduction of Post-harvest Losses in Grain Processing A critical element in any post-harvest management system adopted is the reduction of post-harvest losses. Efforts have been made to militate against post-harvest losses at international and regional level through the creation of an information system to

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better manage the problem within Africa. The African Post Harvest Losses Information System (APHLIS) is a product of international efforts created to collect, analyse and disseminate data on PHL of cereal grain in sub Saharan Africa. The data are used in determining areas to target in loss reduction education programmes and in monitoring the success of such interventions [20]. However, use of APHLIS has its challenges. Challenges cited by Rembold et al. [46] are its low visibility and reliability. More extensive communication is required in terms of explaining its relevance to international and regional policy framework players. Information generated needs to be reliable so that users trust the system. They also point out that capacity development is of uttermost importance as it will enable users to effectively analyse and use data from the information system. Several technologies and innovations have been developed in an effort to address the problem of post-harvest losses. Dominating the field are recent development in storage loss interventions particularly the promotion of hermetic storage technologies. Several recent studies in Africa (such as Tefera et al. [51] and Gitonga et al. [12] have demonstrated the effectiveness of hermetic storage technology in reducing post-harvest loss in cereal grain. In Zimbabwe, Marimo et al. [34] implemented the hermetic storage technology and showed that the technology not only reduced post-harvest losses but also significantly reduced exposure to aflatoxin among households using the technology. Although participants in this study acknowledged the effectiveness of the storage technology its adoption was hampered by the high costs. Provision of educational programmes and training on post-harvest topics through agricultural extension services is another common strategy used in reducing postharvest losses. One challenge noted by Kitinoja et al. [27] in the use of this strategy is the lack of follow-through and support after training. Research that adapts emerging post-harvest technologies to local needs is also essential particularly in developing countries. This as Kitinoja et al. [27] suggest, should be augmented by increased commitment to post-harvest research through revisiting funding priorities.

4 Processing of Maize Grain Maize is predominantly processed into maize meal. Other products made from maize include flour, oil, various corn snacks and samp. The maize processing sector was traditionally dominated by three main large-scale operators. The deregulation of the industry in the 1990’s heralded the entry of additional players in the sector [58]. A further sharp increase in number of both formal and informal grain millers was noted in 2008. This was largely due to the combined effect of the market deregulation and the easing of the grain procurement process [24]. Table 2 displays the characteristic features of maize grain processors in Zimbabwe. The increase in small-scale processers has made maize meal more accessible in rural and urban communities. Due to the proliferation of small-scale maize meal

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Table 2 Characteristic features of maize grain processors in Zimbabwe Scale of operation

Milling capacity

Target Market

Location

Maize meal packaging

Large-scale

15 tonnes/h

Established wholesalers and retailers

Industrial sites of Product packaged towns and cities in well-known brands

Medium-scale

8 tonnes/h

Small informal traders

Situated around low-income residential areas

Unbranded packaging

Small-scale

250-300 kg per day

Caters for walk-in customers

Situated in high density areas of major cities and rural areas

Use customer provided polythene bags

Source Kapuya et al. [24]

processors urban, peri-urban maize farmers are able to process maize meal for household consumption quickly and cheaply. Such ease of accessibility to maize meal processing ensures food security at household level. Several challenges complicate processing efforts in developing countries including Zimbabwe. These include the following: • Use of low-level technology (manual tools and equipment) in processing maize meal, particularly among communal farmers [24]. • Lack of capacity for local industries to manufacture complete shellers/threshers, the motorised parts have to be imported. • Adverse effects of current electricity load-shedding and power cuts on milling capacity as technology used by large, medium and small-scale grain millers are dependent on electricity.

5 Post-harvest Management of Horticulture The horticulture sector is involved in the cultivation, processing and marketing of vegetables, fruits, flowers, turf and ornamental plants. The production of horticultural produce (such as vegetables and fruits) is now a major agricultural activity among smallholder communal and peri-urban farmers. Horticulture production in Zimbabwe is conducted in three farming systems: in large commercial farms; in smallholder communal resettlement and small-scale commercial farms; and in peri-urban and urban producers practising horticulture in the backyards of residential areas [16]. Large and small-scale commercial farmers are mainly involved in the production and processing of high value horticultural crops, such as green peas for export and, in turn, contributing to the country’s foreign currency earnings. For the smallholder communal farmer, horticultural production and processing functions both as a source

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of income when produce is marketed in highly populated local urban areas and enhancing household food security [32]. Correct post-harvest handling practices need to be instituted in fruit and vegetable processing in order to provide consistently high-quality products that meet market demand. Different harvest and post- harvest practices influence the maintenance of quality and maximization of the shelf life of fruit and vegetable produce. Vegetable and fruit handling go through six stages that include harvesting, drying and curing, grading, packaging and storage. Harvesting is an initial critical process in the handling of vegetables and fruits. There are three critical elements essential to good harvesting of vegetables and fruit; the timing, technique and conditions of harvesting. Harvesting can be timed such that a producer optimises on short term market opportunities through harvesting early in the season to take advantage of opportunities for higher prices, e.g. sale of new potatoes or young carrots. Timing of the harvest is determined by maturity [26]. Timing of harvest is essential in determining the best maturity to harvest the produce since the shelf life and suitability for long-term storage of the crop is affected by the maturity of the crop at harvest. Four essential conditions for harvesting include; harvesting the crop at its ideal harvest time though generally early morning conditions are recommended as best, harvesting when the crop is at its highest moisture content, exercising care when placing fruit and vegetables in field containers to avoid crop damage, using clean containers for storing and transporting harvested produce. Use of the wrong harvesting technique impacts on the quality of the vegetable and fruit produce. Various fruits and vegetables have specific tools and techniques that maintain produce quality during harvesting e.g. harvesting of fruit from tall trees using a hook and catching bag on a pole to prevent fruit from falling to the ground and being bruised. The drying and curing stage is mainly applied to bulb, tuber and root like vegetables for the primary purpose of extending their storage, marketing and shelf life. The right drying and curing technique should be utilised in order to improve the shell life of the produce. Grading is done specifically for separating produce according to quality, ripeness, colour and size. It is essential that these activities be conducted in specialist grading areas or sheds that provide hygienic and efficient processing system. Three qualities are necessary for packaging, first, it must enhance attractiveness of the produce, secondly it must enable convenient handling and marketing of produce; finally, it must help in preventing mechanical damage of the produce. Various packing materials can be used ranging from locally made wooden crate and woven baskets, corrugated card board, plastic crates, bags and nets. Two conditions for selection of packaging are that its use is sustainable and cost-effective.

6 Post-harvest Losses Incurred in Horticulture Post-harvest losses tend to be the most acute in horticultural crops with estimated losses ranging from 40 to 80% among countries in sub Saharan African [27]. Postharvest losses of vegetables and fruit tend to be higher than those of cereals. Estimates

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Table 3 Causes of post-harvest losses in fruit and vegetable supply chain in Zimbabwe Stage

Example of loss

Cause

Harvesting, handling at harvesting

Harvesting of immature crop, Bruised, cracked fruit

Rough handling, lack of knowledge on crop physiology

Sorting and grading

Vegetables and fruit contaminated with dirt/sand

Lack of sorting facilities

Packaging

Mechanical damage of crop

use of inappropriate containers

Storage

Bruised, cracked, sun scalded, Poor sorting prior to storage rotten fruit finding their way into Over piling and over stacking of storage fruits during storage Fungal disease spread during storage

Marketing, distribution

Sun scaled produce

Excessive exposure of food to sunlight due to shaded selling points

Source Njaya [43]; Chebanga et al. [5]

of horticultural losses among smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe were reported by Masanganise [36] to range between 35 and 45%. Several factors determine the extent of post-harvest loss encountered in horticultural crops and these include perishability of the commodity, environmental factors and post-harvest handling, storage and processing practices [32]. The challenges faced by formal or informal smallholder horticultural crop farmers are the same across sub Saharan Africa. Common causes of post-harvest losses among informal and formal smallholder horticulture farmers established in studies conducted in Zimbabwe are listed in Table 3. The key phase at which loss was mainly experienced was at the storage and transportation stage [5]. Loss incurred during the storage stage was mainly due to absence of proper storage facilities particularly for the informal traders. Loss also occurred due to the poor quality of the crop stemming from improper harvesting and handling practices.

7 Strategies in Reduction of Post-harvest Losses in Horticulture Post-harvest losses of horticultural crops can be addressed at different stages of the supply chain. Various studies have shown that lack of interest in post-harvest activities [43]; improper post-harvest practices [5]; poor infrastructure for processing and marketing of fruits and vegetables [43] contributed to post-harvest losses in Horticulture production. Post-harvest interventions recommended in the Horticulture SubSector Study Report of [21] include having assessment of pre-harvest constraints and development of mitigatory interventions e.g. low-cost-on-farm pre coolers.

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Development and distribution of post-harvest manuals in vernacular languages and improvement of rural road infrastructure are the other interventions that are proposed.

8 Processing of Horticultural Crops in Informal and Formal Enterprises Fruit and vegetables are highly perishable crops and if not processed quickly deteriorate due to spoilage and microbial attack. The most common method utilised in Zimbabwe of processing fruit is direct sun-drying while vegetables are first boiled then sun-dried [32]. Fruits and vegetables are also processed into high value products, such as juices, purees and jams. Table 4 lists the possible processing methods for the top five vegetables and fruits produced by smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe. Processing in informal enterprises (small-scale) tends to be predominantly manual whereas in most formal enterprises both manual and motorized technologies are utilised [32]. Two elements considered critical to successful fruit and vegetable processing are a high skill level and presence of proper quality control system to ensure product uniformity and consistency [32]. For medium and large-scale enterprises availability of adequate water, electricity and proper lighting is essential for smooth running of processing operations. Several challenges complicate processing efforts in developing countries including Zimbabwe. These include the following: • Most local fruit and vegetables are highly perishable; it spoils easily after harvest unless if it is quickly processed [25]. • Many fruits and vegetables are highly seasonal and processing of the commodities may also be seasonal. Seasonality of production has negative impact on economic growth as it means that a processing facility may not be used throughout the year, that can be an obstacle to investment [15]. Table 4 Processing method for vegetables and fruit Vegetables

Processing methods

Fruit

Processing methods

Tomatoes

Juice, paste and purees, canned and bottled sauces

Mangoes

Juice, jam and jelly, canned, dried, chutney

Onions

Pickled, sauces, soups, dried

Oranges

Juices, squashes and cordials, marmalade and jam

Covo

Dried

Bananas

Juice, chips, dried

Potatoes

Frozen, chips, dried

Masawu

Juice, wine, dried

Paprika

Dried, sauces, soups, paste and purees

Peaches

Canned, juice, squashes and cordials, jam and jelly, pickles

Source Fellows [10]

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• High standards of hygiene and quality controls must be instituted to avoid contamination by food poisoning micro-organisms [10].

9 Marketing of Food Marketing is a series of activities involved in moving of goods from the point of production to the point of consumption. It includes all the activities involved in packaging, transporting, sorting and grading, storage, retailing of agricultural produce and products. Agricultural products have special features that make their marketing different from manufactured commodities. The special characteristics that bring complexities to the marketing of agricultural product are the perishability of the product, seasonality of production, bulkiness of the products, variations in the quality of the products and the irregular supply of the product. Most farm products are perishable in nature and are produced in a particular season. This characteristic nature is often cited in literature as one of the factors that threatens the viability of horticultural enterprises of smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe [37]. The characteristic bulkiness of most farm produce makes their transportation and storage difficult and expensive. Agricultural produce, such as fruit and vegetables, tend to have large variations in quality that makes grading and standardisation difficult. Lack of sorting and grading technologies usually force smallholder farmers to sell their produce through informal markets with minimal emphasis on quality [35]. The raising demand for food due to population increase, urbanization and changing dietary patterns, has created a huge demand in urban areas. This has put pressure on the food supply and distribution system. Smallholder rural horticultural and peri-urban farmers are now faced with more potential markets for their produce. Entry into this expanding market is essential as it will ensure viability of smallholder horticultural enterprises. Promoting better market access and improving market performance of smallholder horticultural and maize grain producers should be optimised for gain in farmers’ income and the subsequent positive impact on rural and urban livelihoods, food access and security. Several initiatives have been successfully implemented in Zimbabwe that have resulted in better market access and performance of smallholder rural horticultural farmers. Two case studies are illustrated that use of a value chain development and the project approach to marketing. Case 1 An integrated value chain development Programme

Rural agriculture revitalisation project: commercial smallholder farming

Approach

Integrated value chain development approach

Crops

Fruit, vegetables, herbs, spices, tea

Objectives

Develop sustainable contract farming arrangements and market linkages for smallholder farmers in horticulture (continued)

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(continued) Beneficiaries

6000 smallholder farmers in four districts in Zimbabwe

Strategy

1 Smallholder commercial farmers accessed inputs, extension services and negotiated pricing through contract farming 2 Sustainability of contract farming initiative through monitoring, training, capacity building and support to access high value markets through certification 3 Established, facilitated and supported farmers in a multi-stakeholder platform for horticulture value chain 4 Design and use of a comprehensive horticulture trainer’s manual

Period

Jan 2014–Dec 2015

Benefits

Improved access to inputs, technology, information, markets and capital

Implementation challenges Requires practitioners to have deep understanding of specific characteristics of the beneficiaries (in terms of previous marketing experience, training needs, current production practices) and design an intervention that match level of maturity of the value chain and specific beneficiary needs Source Horticulture Sub-Sector Study Report [21]

The approach illustrated in Case 1 is applying a concept in an Agricultural production and processing setting that is currently trending in international trade, business, commerce and the manufacturing sectors. The value chain concept is an approach that allows users to analyse and explain new forms of international trade [21]. The approach requires that all the actors in a market transaction have an understanding of the whole market system they are involved in, in its totality i.e. awareness of the actors and activities that bring a product from conception to its end use. The approach relies heavily on relations that are created by the actors through contracts and is strong in its use of vertical integration in maintaining strong linkages in the market system. Relations among actors can cover areas, such as production, processing and logistics. The strong linkages created usual offer benefits that include improved access to inputs, technology, information, markets and capital [21]. The major merits of this approach are that it is structured and trains beneficiaries in efficient production systems. It also offers structured links to markets and is multi-sectorial in its approach to marketing. Case 2 Project approach to marketing Programme

Agricultural and Rural Development Authority-Mashonaland East Fruit and Vegetable Project- (ARDA-MFVP Project)

Approach

Project approach to marketing

Crops

Fresh produce

Objectives

Aimed at assisting smallholder horticulture producer by the improvement of production and marketing techniques of fresh produce (continued)

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(continued) Beneficiaries

400 smallholder communal horticulture farmers in Mashonaland East province

Strategy

1 Communal farmers organised themselves into functional groups 2 Communal farmers access infrastructure (irrigation equipment), extension services, horticultural expertise and transport 3 Communal farmers were assisted in forming linkages with big supermarkets

Period

1994–1996

Benefits

Capacitation of project through infrastructure development, links to market created, consultancy provided

Implementation Challenges

No structured training programme was created as a result the beneficiaries were deficient in business acumen; they remained product oriented and only wanted to operate on a cash basis

Source Sena [49]

The approach illustrated in Case 2 utilised a project approach to marketing that is group marketing. The initiative that was donor funded had the right intention of improving the production and marketing techniques of the intended beneficiaries. Its major weakness was the absence of a structured training programme. Support was given through extension services and on a consultative basis. As such, some negative production, processing and marketing practices may not have been changed.

10 Urban Food Supply and Distribution System A food supply and distribution system consists of two subsystems. The first is a subsystem for supplying food to cities that consists of infrastructure and activities linked to production, assembly, processing, storage and transport to urban consumption centres [2]. The second is a food distribution subsystem that consists of formal, informal, traditional and modern activities and infrastructure involved in food distribution within cities that may be specialised, planned or spontaneous markets [2]. The urban population’s demand for perishable food, such as fruit and vegetable, are usually met by local supply [52]. This demand opens up greater opportunities for the expansion of the rural-urban food trade offering important potential markets for horticultural farmers and producers. While opportunities are provided for them to be key participants in urban markets a considerable amount of literature has been published on the barriers they encounter. For example, IPES-Food [22] notes that many smallholder farmers in developing countries still lack resources, knowledge and infrastructure to access new market. Studies done in Zimbabwe, e.g. Kusina and Kusina [30]; Muchadeyi et al. [38] and Mukarumbwa et al. [39] have identified areas in farmer market participation needing attention, such as lack of marketing skills

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and access to marketing information, poor road and market infrastructure and high transportation costs. Retail distribution of the food is done through large wholesale and retail markets, supermarkets, hypermarkets, shops, kiosks and street vendors. Retail markets may be formal (i.e. controlled by the municipality) or informal while supermarkets and shops are privately owned. Kiosks (referred to as ‘Tuckshops’) usually made of various temporary containers or structures are found in informal neighbourhoods. Kiosks and street vendors are a unique feature in cities of many developing countries (including Zimbabwe) in that they provide an informal distribution system that guarantees food supply in areas not serviced by formal markets [2]. Urban dwellers access their daily food in different formal and informal markets. The informal market is a critical source of food (including processed or cooked) and income in urban areas [53]. Large urban poor population rely heavily on the informal market for accessible and affordable food [45, 53]. Informal market sources for food for the urban poor include open-air markets, road-side markets, kiosks and street vendors. Street vending is a popular source of food among the urban poor as it enables some consumers to purchase very small quantities of food (referred to in Zimbabwe as ‘katsavona’) on a daily basis. Although street food vending is a viable choice for purchasing food among the urban poor, street food vending activities have often been criticised for their negative impact on public health as issues of food safety are constantly raised [40, 43]. Street vending activities are often criminalised as sellers usually operate in undesignated places without licences [43]. ‘Supermarket expansion’ is a phenomenon that is increasing at a fast rate as international and regional supermarket chains establish new markets in developing countries including Zimbabwe. In many cities, the traditional markets, such as small shops and outlets, are the first to feel the pressure of supermarket expansion [6]. These large supermarket chains are playing an important role in urban food provision by offering food to consumers at low prices due to their advantage of being efficient, utilisation of economies of scale and their powerful bargaining positions [53]. Although supermarkets offer more diverse high-quality products, they have been found to negatively increase the consumption of highly processed foods at the expense of unprocessed food [47]. Above all the food supply and distribution system must be efficient, allowing accessibility to food by all urban dwellers and ensuring that all urban households are food secure. Urban planners are increasingly being called upon to devise strategies that make food supply and distribution systems more efficient and dynamic [2]. The effective planning and management of the physical and spatial dimensions of the city is therefore essential in order to ensure that food of the right quantity, quality, variety and safety is brought into urban areas.

11 Emerging Issues Key issues emerging from this review are that:

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• The New Urban Agenda recognizes food security and nutrition as one of the major challenges for cities and local governments. • Though the COVID-19 containment measures were effective in curbing the spread of the virus and related deaths, they had a severe impact on food systems, livelihoods of particularly urban dwellers, income opportunities for those in both formal and informal employment and consequently food security and nutrition. • Efforts still need to be made to reduce food losses emanating from the post-harvest and handling and processing of food. • Appropriate post-harvest handling practices need to be instituted in fruit and vegetable processing in order to provide consistently high-quality products that meet market demand. • Food processing at small-scale level is still using traditional technology that hampers increases in output and value addition. • There is very little evidence of utilisation of emerging technologies in the processing of food within the medium and large-scale food processors. • Promoting better access and improving the market performance of smaller holder rural farmers is the key to increasing their visibility in new local and regional markets. • The value chain development approach has major merits as it is structured and trains beneficiaries in efficient production systems. It also offers structured links to markets and offers multi-sectorial in its approach to marketing. • Informal food markets are a key source of food for the urban poor. • Supermarkets have brought a more diverse and high-quality supply of food into the urban food market though they have become avenues for the increased consumption of highly processed food. Lessons Drawn • Post-harvest losses of agricultural crops should be addressed at each stage of the supply chain and the critical factors to target in any intervention are the postharvest practices of the farmers. Education and training through various agricultural extension and support services is essential in changing farmer post-harvest practices. • There is need to increase research that focuses on adapting emerging post-harvest storage technologies to local needs. Adoption of these storage technologies faces challenges, some of which are related to the high cost of production. • The level of technology utilised in processing food among small and medium scale processes has to be raised if increased output and commercialisation is to be realised. There might be a number of economic and structural factors contributing to this aspect. Research and innovation output from universities and other research institutions should be focused on building the technology capacity of the food processing industry. • Value chain development is a marketing strategy that should be adopted more in marketing of agricultural products.

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• Informal food markets are a critical source of food for the urban poor. Informal food markets, such as street vending, kiosks (tuck shops) in areas not serviced by formal food market will continue to exist. Efforts must be made by the local government and municipality authorities to regulate and provide designated spaces for their proper functioning. • Effective planning and management of the city spaces is essential for the efficient supply and distribution of food in urban markets. Congested, inaccessible, food markets with poor storage, marketing and retailing infrastructure affect the flow of food into the city.

12 Discussion The challenge of providing food in urban and rural population in Zimbabwe cannot be met through improvements in the agriculture production system only. Reduction of food losses throughout the food supply chain and improvements in the nutrition content, safety, shelf-life, processing, preservation, supply and distribution of food are key strategies to ensuring food security and attainment of healthy and productive lives. The New Urban Agenda views the integration of food security and nutrition as a vital strategy in ending hunger and malnutrition particularly in urban communities though the COVID-19 pandemic has had an effect on each of the food availability, access, utilization and stability. An increase has been noted in the number of formal and informal food processors. Although the technology currently used in processing of food is low, it is anticipated that current global trends in digital innovations and emerging technology will provide new opportunities in food processing automation in Zimbabwe. This will not only increase the range of processed products available on the market but will contribute to economic growth of the food processing sector. A globally trend currently being witnessed is that of the growth of the urban population. More people live in urban areas than in rural areas with 54% of the world’s population residing in urban areas in 2014 [54]. Zimbabwe is also experiencing this trend in urban population growth i with a downward effect of having a substantial number of urban dwellers who are poor. The growing urban population coupled with other factors, such as changes in dietary patterns has led to an increased demand for food in urban areas. This has opened up opportunities for increased access and participation of smallholder rural and peri-urban farmers in the urban food market. Such a development is not only good for sustenance of rural livelihoods but contributes to the economic development of the country. Value chain development is a marketing strategy commonly applied in international trade, business, commerce and the manufacturing sectors. It has merits that warrant its increased use in the agricultural production and processing sector. It enables smallholder communal and commercial farmer to have improved access to inputs, technology, information, markets and capital. Changes are occurring in the retailing of food in urban areas and growth points. The increase of supermarket chains in the urban food landscape has brought diversity, quality and lower priced food to the urban dwellers. However, the traditional

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food markets, such as small shops and informal food markets (street vending, tuck shops) continue to play a critical role in the urban food distribution system as well in employment creation. The operations of informal food markets particularly street food vending continue to raise public health and environmental concerns.

13 Conclusion Literature drawn from fields, such as agriculture, business and commerce, food technology and urban planning have been utilised in exploring the processing, handling and marketing of food in Zimbabwe. Key issues included in the review centred on post-harvest losses and reduction strategies; post-harvest handling practices in the grain and horticulture sector; foods commonly processed and technology utilised by small, medium and large-scale processors; challenges encountered by farmers and food processors as they process and market food commodities and the urban food supply and distribution system. Issues emerging from the review were pinpointed and lessons drawn were highlighted.

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13. Global Report on Food Crises (2020) Global network against food crises and food security information network. https://www.wfp.org/publications/2020-global-food-crises 14. Guner R, Hasanoglu I, Aktas F (2020) COVID-19: Prevention and control measures in community. Turk J Med Sci. 50(3):571–577. https://doi.org/10.3906/sag-2004-146 15. Gustavsson J, Cederberg C, Sonesson U (2011) Global food losses and food waste. Study conducted for International Congress. FAO, Rome 16. Heri S (2006) The growth and development of horticultural sector. In: Rukuni M, Tawonenzvi P, Eicher C, Munyuki-Hungwe M, Matondi P (eds) Zimbabwe agricultural revolution revisited. University of Zimbabwe Publication, Harare 17. Hodges RJ, Buzby JC, Bennett B (2011) Postharvest losses and waste in developed and less developed countries: opportunities to improve resource use. J Agric Sci 149:37–45 18. Hodges RJ, Stathers TE (2012) Training manual for improving postharvest handling and storage. UN World Food Programme and National Resources Institute, Rome 19. Hodges RJ, Bernard M, Felix R (2014) APHLIS-Postharvest cereal losses in Sub Saharan Africa, their estimation, assessment and reduction. Technical report. https://doi.org/10.2788/ 19582 20. Hodges RJ, Bernard M, Rembold F (2014) Postharvest cereal losses in Sub-Saharan Africa, their estimation assessment and reduction. Technical Report by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, Luxembourg, Publication Office of the European Union 21. Horticulture Sub-Sector Study Report (2014) Agricultural revitalisation programme. SNV and DANIDA. https://www.snv.org/download/rarp_2016-Horticulture-report.pdf. Accessed 05 Feb 2020 22. IPES-Food (2017) What makes urban food policy happen? Insights from five case studies. International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems. http://www.ipes-food.org/ima ges/Report/Cities_full.pdf 23. International Food Information Council (IFICF) (2010) What is processed food? You might be surprised! Understand our food communication toolkit. Information handout for the International Food Information Foundation, Sept 2010. www.foodinsight.org 24. Kapuya T, Saruchera D, Jongwe A, Mucheri T, Mujeyi K, Traub LN, Meyer F (2010) The grain industry value chain in Zimbabwe. Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations 25. Keding GB, Schneider K, Jordan I (2013) Production and processes of food as a core aspect of nutrition-sensitive agriculture and sustainable diets. Food Sec. https://doi.org/10.1007/s1257013-0312-6 26. Kiaya V (2014) Postharvest losses and strategies to reduce them. Technical Paper on Postharvest losses, AFC International 27. Kitinoja L, Saran S, Roy SK, Kader AA (2011) Postharvest technology for developing countries: challenges and opportunities in research, outreach and advocacy. J Sci Food Agric 91:597–603 28. Knorr D, Watze H (2019) Food processing at the crossroads. Front Nutr 6(85). doi: https://doi. org/10.3389/nut.2019.00085 29. Kupaya T, Saruchera D, Jongwe A, Mucheri T, Mujeyi K, Traub LN, Meyer F (2010) The grain industry value chain in Zimbabwe. Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations 30. Kusina JF, Kusina NT (1999) Feasibility study of agricultural and household activities as they relate to livestock production in Guruve district of Mashonaland Central province with emphasis on village chicken production. Report prepared for Household Agriculture Support Program, Harare Zimbabwe 31. Machekano H, Mvumi BM, Rwafa R, Richardson Kageler SJ, Nyabako T (2018) Postharvest knowledge, perceptions and practices of African small-scale maize and sorghum farmers. https://doi.org/10.5073/jka:2018.463.193. Accessed 03 Feb 2020 32. Madakadze R, Masarirambi M, Nyakudya E (2004) Processing of horticultural crops in the tropics. In: Dris R, Jain SM (eds) Production practices and quality assessment of food crops. Kluwer Academic Publisher, Netherlands 33. Mandisvika G, Chirisa I, Bandauko E (2015) Post-harvest issues: Rethinking technology for value-addition in food security and food sovereignty in Zimbabwe. Adv Food Technol Nutr Sci Open J 1:29–37

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34. Marimo N, Mucherera B, Changwena D, Mhanga S (2017) Postharvest management technologies for reducing aflatoxin contamination in maize grain and exposure to humans. Final Report. Harare: Development Solutions 35. Market Survey Report (2017) Agribusiness in Zimbabwe: opportunities for cooperation. Ministry of Economic Affairs, Netherlands. file://F:/Market%20Survey%Report%20Zim%20_%20Version%2011%20compressed.pdf 36. Masanganise P (1994) Developing a marketing strategy for smallholder fresh fruit and vegetable producers in Zimbabwe. College Press, Wye 37. Mashapa C, Mudyazvivi E, Mhuriro-Mashapa P, Matenda T, Mufunda W, Dube L, Zisadza A (2014) Assessment of market potential for horticultural produce for smallholder farmers around Mutare city, Eastern Zimbabwe. Greener J Soc Sci 4(3):085–093. https://doi.org/10. 15580/GJSS.2014.3.012414062 38. Muchadeyi FC, Sibanda S, Kusina NT, Kusina JF, Makuza S (2005) Village chicken flock dynamics and contribution of chickens to household livelihoods in Zimbabwe. Trop Anim Health Prod 37(4):333–334 39. Mukarumbwa P, Mushunje A, Taruvinga A, Akenyemi B, Ngarava S (2018) Analysis of factors that influence market channel choice of smallholder vegetable farmers in Mashonaland East province of Zimbabwe. Int J Develop Sustain 7(2):734–754 40. Mukhola MS (2007) Guidelines for an environmental education training programme for street food vendors in Polokwane city. Available from http://etd.rau.ac.za/theses/submitted/etd-031 32007-140510/restricted/last.pdf. Unpublished Thesis. Accessed on 20 Jan 2020 41. Munyanyi W (2016) Agricultural infrastructure development imperatives for sustainable food production: a Zimbabwean perspective. Russ J Agric Socio-Econ Sci 12(24):3 42. Mutapi F, Banda G, et al (2020) A comparative analysis of COVID-19 mitigation measures in Tiba countries, a case for development of multi-dimensional strategies for resource challenged countries. National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Global Health Research Programme (16/136/33) 43. Njaya T (2014) Operations of street food vendors and their impact on sustainable urban life in high density suburbs of Harare in Zimbabwe. Asian J Econ Model 2(1):18–31 44. Olaeye OA, Onilude AA, Idowu OA (2006) Quality characteristics of bread produced from composite flours of wheat, plantain and soybeans. Afr J Biotech 5(11):1102–1106 45. Proctor FJ, Bergegue JA (2016) Food systems at the urban-rural interface. Working Paper Series Document No. 194 Rimisp, Santaigo Chile 46. Rembold F, Tran B, Mvumi B (n.d) Postharvest loss estimates for food security and loss reduction policy support in Sub-Saharan Africa: new Aphlis master class. https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/communities/sites/jrccties/filesnew_aphlis_masterclass_eipm_p retoria_v5bm_0.pdf. Accessed 10 February 2020 47. Rischke R, Kimenju S, Klasen S, Qaim M (2015) Supermarkets and food consumption patterns: the case of small towns in Kenya. Food Policy 52:9–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2015. 02.001 48. Sadza SC, Nherera CM, Chakarisa TN, Tagwireyi J, Munyuki-Hungwe M (2015) Zimbabwe zero hunger strategic review. Toward a country without hunger. https://documents.wfp.org/ste llent/groups/public/documents/communication/wfp290422.pdf. Accessed 13 January 2020 49. Sena MI (1997) Horticultural marketing in Zimbabwe: Problems met by smallholder and experience of the Mashonaland East fruit and vegetable project in addressing these. In: Jackson JE, Turner AD, Matanda ML (eds) Smallholder horticulture in Zimbabwe Harare. University of Zimbabwe Publications 50. Shim SM, Seo SH, Lee Y, Moon GI, Kim MS, Park JH (2011) Consumers knowledge and safety perceptions of food additives: evaluation of effectiveness of transmitting information on preservatives. Food Control 22:1054 51. Tefera T, Kanampiu F, De Grooote H, Hellin J, Mugo, Kimenyu S, Beyene Y, Boddupalli PM, Shiferaw B, Banziiger M (2011) The metal silo: an effective grain technology for reducing post-harvest insect and pathogen losses in maize while improving smallholder farmer’s food security in developing countries. Crop Protect 30:240–245

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52. Tschirley D, Reardon T, Dolislager MP, Snyder J (2015) The rise of the middle class in East and Southern Africa: implications for food systems transformation. J Int Dev 27:628–647 53. Tull K (2018) Urban food systems and nutrition. KD4 Helpdesk report. Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, UK. https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/handle/20.500.12413/14032 54. UN (2014) World urbanization prospects. Department of Economic and Social Affairs. https:// esa.un.org/unpd/wup/publications/files/wup2014_highlights.pdf 55. UN (2016) Optimising investments for food security in the New Urban Agenda, Quito Habitat III Draft. http://habitat.3.org/thenew-urban-agenda 56. WFP (2020, July 3) WFP global response to COVID-19. https://reliefweb.int/report/world/ wfp-global-response-covid-19-june-2020. Accessed17 December 2020 57. WHO (2020) Coronavirus disease: COVID-19 Situation Report 136, 4 June, 2020 58. Whitehouse and Associates (2003) Overview of the food and pre-mix industries in southern and eastern Africa Zimbabwe. A report prepared for the Micronutrient Initiative, August 2003 59. Wilkinson J (2008) The food processing industry, globalization and developing countries. In: McCullough EB, Pingali PL, Stamoulis KG (eds) The transformation of Agri-Food. Impact on smallholder agriculture. FAO & Earthscan, London

Urban Food Markets and the Resilience Factor in Zimbabwe Percy Toriro and Tamirirepi Banhire

Abstract Increasingly there are many studies focusing on urban food systems as a whole and this systematic approach has been fruitful. Some components of the urban food system have also been examined individually. Some of the most frequently studied components of food systems are food production, reduction of food waste, the contribution of urban agriculture, nutrition, food security issues and the sustainability of urban food systems. However, comparatively less studies have sought to understand urban food markets as a crucial component of urban food systems especially in relation to resilience. Governments have become increasingly aware of the need for resilience planning so that they are better prepared for natural disasters and other destabilising shocks as a move towards fulfilling some of the objectives of the New Urban Agenda (NUA). This resilience planning is also crucial where urban food markets are concerned. This chapter is the output of a desktop study that contributes to an understanding of the relation between urban food markets and the resilience factor in Zimbabwe. Whilst urban food systems as a whole are critical in resilience planning, it is also of paramount importance to have a food market perspective particularly in the new era where food supplies are threatened by the coronavirus pandemic. Resilient urban food markets can withstand various shocks and stresses ranging from social upheavals to natural disasters and economic shocks and as a result contribute to food security. The chapter examines Zimbabwe’s urban food markets and their resilience mostly in terms of economic shocks and reviews literature by various proponents. It proceeds to interrogate the different types of markets that exist in Zimbabwean cities, how each typology operates and the implications on resilience and on urban food security. The chapter also observes urban food market prices and whether they are the same for different markets and what causes disparities if any. The information found in literature and in emerging issues will inform the lessons learnt. P. Toriro (B) Municipal Development Partnership for Eastern and Southern Africa, Harare, Zimbabwe e-mail: [email protected] T. Banhire Department of Architecture & Real Estate, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 P. Toriro and I. Chirisa (eds.), Environmental Resilience, Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0305-1_5

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Keywords Food market · Food system · Policy · Resilience · Shocks · Pricing · Urban planning

1 Introduction Understanding urban food security is vital. In 2008, the world reached what is now referred to as the ‘tipping point’ in demographic distribution of people between rural and urban areas. For the first time, more people lived in cities than in rural areas [44]. This fast-growing urban population is expected to rise to 66% by 2050, a growth that will especially occur in the developing world, also known as the global South [43]. The stability of food supply to cities is of paramount importance in the face of such rapid population growth especially when cities are faced with a plethora of other challenges, such as climate change, economic instability, resource scarcity, and, recently, the coronavirus pandemic. The stability of food supply is largely dependent on resilient urban food markets that will, in turn, result in food security for the urban dwellers. Resilient urban food markets can withstand various shocks and stresses. According to Forster et al. [13], it must be noted that current food systems are being challenged to provide permanent and reliable access to adequate, safe, local, diversified, fair, healthy and nutrient rich food for all and that the task of feeding cities will face multiple constraints posed by inter alia, unbalanced distribution and access, environmental degradation, resource scarcity and climate change, unsustainable production and consumption patterns and food loss and waste [30, 37]. Urban food markets are concerned with the supply, distribution and access to food that should be sustainable and resilient. The terms sustainability and resilience are often used interchangeably and sometimes assumed to hold the same meaning. Nieder et al. [28] asserted that sustainability is not considered to mean the same as resilience as sustainability refers to engaging in practices that meet the resource needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future, whereas resilience refers to the ability of systems to survive, withstand and adapt to various shocks and stresses. Closely linked to food markets resilience and sustainability is the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s pillars of food security. They are premised on four pillars that are, ‘availability, accessibility, utilisation and stability’ [12] in ([4]: 204). Food markets should guarantee that food is available, accessible, stable and the food is utilised to ensure food security. Urban markets are commercial entities where goods and services are bought and sold in cities. The resilience of these urban markets is a major determinant of how food secure urban dwellers are in the face of disasters and destabilising shocks [20]. Looking at urban markets as a critical element of urban food systems in resilience planning can strengthen food distribution and retail. According to Nijhuis and Zeuli [29], city leaders tend to mistakenly assume that since food systems are predominantly comprised of private-sector businesses, food businesses have sufficient resources and motive to rapidly return to normal operations in the event of a major catastrophe. Resilience planning including food security is

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also a key urban deliverable under the NUA. However, planning for food security and sustainable livelihoods has not always been prioritised. Destabilising shocks create market uncertainties and smaller grocery stores or corner stores may not have sufficient resources to deal with major catastrophes. It is crucial for cities to be vested in developing resilient urban food markets that will ensure that food supplies return to pre-disaster levels as quickly and as equitably as possible, so that all urban dwellers have adequate access to food. When the resilience of cities is discussed, it often focuses on vulnerabilities to significant natural disasters. However, a truly resilient city will be able to withstand not only natural disasters, but also social upheavals and significant economic shocks, such as the Great Recession. Nijhuis and Zeuli [29] defined resilience as the capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, businesses and systems within a city to survive, adapt and grow no matter what kinds of chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience hence, the focus on the resilience factor of Zimbabwe’s urban food markets in the face of an extremely volatile economic environment. There is need to examine and understand roles different actors can play in ensuring a quick return to normalcy aftershocks to the food system. Adequate understanding leading to disaster preparedness planning can ensure more effective and coordinated responses in the aftermath of a disaster or any other destabilising shocks to ensure that urban dwellers remain food secure.

2 Literature Review City, metropolitan and national governments have started to prominently and actively take part in local and international dialogue on the future of urban food and nutrition security. This is evidenced by the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact, currently signed by more than 140 cities around the world and by agricultural ministers of 65 countries who signed a declaration in early 2016 recognising the need for giving more attention to urban food security [13, 15]. These and other recent international declarations by international support organisations and cities call for an increased focus on the role that cities and city regions could play in enhancing food security, local economic development and resilient and sustainable development of both urban and rural areas. Governments that are concerned about the resilience of their urban food markets must consider the vulnerabilities of these markets and devise strategies for them to become more resilient and resistant to catastrophes and destabilising shocks [21]. Vulnerabilities can be identified along the entire food supply chain, especially processing, distribution and retail that are all part and parcel of urban food markets [34, 41]. It is also important to examine the types of markets within cities and note how they operate that will unveil vulnerabilities and establish their implications on resilience. The city of Toronto in Canada is considered a global best practice in food systems planning [6]. It is noted during Toronto’s food system vulnerability assessment that the food system comprises of various sectors and those classified under urban markets

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were food distribution, food retail and restaurants. Food distribution comprises of primary warehouse suppliers also known as wholesalers and secondary suppliers that move food from processing facilities to food retail stores and other food access points, such as restaurants and food banks. Food retail comprises of supermarkets, grocery stores, convenience stores and farmers’ markets whilst there are chain and independent restaurants [28]. The weaknesses in these sectors are difficult to analyse because food products follow different paths from farm to retail, depending on the food item and the retailer. Food retailers generally receive all of their products from three different distribution channels: a primary distributor, such as a warehouse, wholesaler or distribution centre, a secondary distributor (local warehouses, wholesalers or distribution centres) and direct store delivery [2]. Distributors purchase products from processing facilities, store the products and ultimately deliver them to food retailers. The primary distributor sources the majority of products sold by the retailer. Secondary distributors provide additional products that the primary supplier does not carry, including more specialty products and unique brands. They also typically provide fresh meat, fish and produce. Toronto’s food markets are diverse in nature with a wide range of food sources and distribution channels and this largely contributes to the resilience of their urban food systems especially in the face of increasing occurrence of natural disasters. There are different types of markets in cities [26]. The distribution typologies also differ. Some involve direct store delivery where products are shipped directly from the grower or processing facility to the food retailer. Direct store delivery is limited to certain products typically carbonated beverages, milk, bread, salty snacks, prepared frozen foods and some fresh produce [16]. Some supermarkets have a vertically integrated supply chain. This means that they own their primary distributor [23]. Smaller, independent grocery and convenience stores generally rely on independently owned distributors and for fresh wholesale fruit and produce they rely on the Ontario Food Terminal. In some cases, smaller independent grocery and convenience stores may also purchase from a supermarket’s vertically integrated distribution centre [2]. It is important to note that although the increase of farms and processors within a city increases supplier proximity, it creates greater vulnerability because of the likelihood that a disaster would destroy the farms and processing facilities. In that event, food retailers and households would need to find alternative sources of food and rebuild food supply chains, that may not be done quickly. There are different types of markets in African cities and these are distinctively formal or informal markets [25, 34]. Formal markets comprise of wholesalers, restaurants, convenience stores and most importantly food retailers, such as supermarkets. They, generally, are licensed and operate in full compliance with the law [3]. Figure 1 depicts the urban food system of African cities and in particular, Zimbabwean cities. What is important to note is that there are informal and formal food retailers in the urban markets. It is important to examine operations of the aforementioned formal and informal urban markets within the urban food system in order to establish the implications on resilience. In observing formal urban markets, Reardon et al. [32] observed that there has been extremely rapid transformation of the food retail sector in the global

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Fig. 1 A structural framework of the urban food system [10]

South in the past 5–10 years. This has been accompanied by a further consolidation and multi-nationalization of the supermarket sector itself [45]. This organisational change, accompanied by intense competition, has driven changes in the organisation of procurement systems of supermarket chains, toward centralised and regionalised systems, use of specialized/dedicated wholesalers and preferred supplier systems, and demanding, private quality standards. Weatherspoon and Reardon [45] have posited that the rise of supermarkets in Africa since the mid-1990s was radically transforming the food retail sector. Supermarkets have spread fast in southern and eastern Africa, already penetrating beyond middle-class big-city markets into smaller towns and poorer areas. According to

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Reardon et al. [32], the most recent venue for supermarket take-off is in eastern and southern Africa. South Africa is the front-runner, with roughly a 55% share of supermarkets in overall food retail and 1700 supermarkets for 35 million persons. It is clear that supermarkets are of paramount significance in urban markets as they cater for large populations of urban dwellers. The significance of supermarkets within the urban food system makes it important for the resilience factor to become embedded in their establishment. Urban markets need to be resilient that is they need to be resistant to shocks and disasters so as to ensure urban dwellers have a consistent and reliable food source hence, they are food secure. Minten [24] has observed that global retail chains are becoming increasingly dominant in the global food trade and their rise leads to dramatic impacts on agricultural supply chains and on small producers. However, the prospects and impacts of a food retail revolution in poor countries are not yet well understood. The survey and analysis revealed that, while global retail chains sell better-quality food, their prices are 40–90% higher than those seen in traditional retail markets. In poor settings characterized by high food price elasticities, a lack of willingness to pay for quality and small retail margins, supermarkets appear to set prices that maximize profits on the basis of price-inelastic demand for quality products from a small middle class interested in one-stop shopping. It seems unlikely that global retail chains will further increase their food retail share in such poor settings [24]. While supermarkets have been successful in penetrating some low-income communities, they are often incompatible with the consumption strategies of the poorest households and this has resulted in the rise of the informal sector. Chat [7] defines the informal sector or trade as employment or production that takes place in small, unregulated and/or unregistered enterprises. Informal traders range from those operating corner stores, food outlets, street vendors and those operating tuckshops and of concern are those selling food. Will’s [47] analysed South Africa data and found that almost two-thirds of street vendors surveyed in 2007 sold food. Existing literature of informal economy data for Kenya, Zambia and Zimbabwe, unfortunately does not report on the number of food retailers. National statistical agencies seldom report employment data on food versus non-food informal retail. Further, the ILO does not include this variable in the regular submissions of labour market data from national statistical agencies. Analysing such data and regularly reporting on it would go a long way to making visible the informal sector’s contribution to the food system and aid in devising strategies to make urban food markets resilient in the face of a fast-growing informal sector. Figure 2 shows activities in the food system of African cities and examples of informal economy involvement. According to Makaye and Munhande [22], over the last 50 years, several factors have worked together to undermine the ability of formal Southern food markets to cater for the needs of swelling numbers of city dwellers. On the supply side, exportoriented and hard-currency-earning agricultural policies have increasingly dictated crop choices, credit programs and incentives, technical extension and research and distribution networks. The frequency and adverse effects of civil and natural disasters are growing in developing countries and are bound to increasingly disrupt rural food production and supply lines to cities. The migration of rural youth to cities has

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Fig. 2 Activities in the food system and examples of informal economy involvement [35]

been intense and will continue to be for decades in sub-Saharan Africa and in many Asian countries [31]. This affects the region’s food production, that is still largely small-scale and labour intensive [39]. With most governments battling economic difficulties, subsidies to decrease food prices in cities are less frequent today and this exacerbates price variability [31, 37]. High transaction costs may discourage rural producers from supplying critical markets and markets may lack the institutional framework they need to operate effectively. This calls for well thought out resilience planning in cities in order to strengthen urban food markets. In Zimbabwe, recurrent years of droughts, economic decline, balance of payment problems, and the controversial and highly contested Fast-Track Land Resettlement Programme embarked upon by the government since the year 2000 adversely affected the supply side of food in the country. The country’s capacity to produce food crops and exportable commodities to earn foreign currency critical for the procurement of food during periods of deficits has been greatly reduced. The seizure of formerly white commercial farms saw a significant reduction in cereal and other food crop production [27]. Urban areas that rely on the formal market for food produced in the rural sector of the economy has thus been seriously affected as the formal markets have suffered regular stockouts of basic commodities, (sugar, mealie meal, milk, cooking oil, vegetable and fruits, among others) for quite long [37]. This shows that the formal markets have not been able to recover from the destabilising shocks or that their recovery is slow hence they are not very resilient. This does not only affect urban dwellers’ access to food but also affects the peri urban areas and the rural hinterlands. Although the 2008 food crisis briefly revealed the importance of promoting urban food security, it is rarely recognized as a key concern in African cities [41]. Policy-makers usually overlook food security matters in urban areas. This is mainly attributable to them viewing food insecurity as a rural issue. Whilst most urban food is obtained from vendors these are usually not recognized, criminalised and even stigmatized [5, 14, 34]. However, these workers offer a wide array of affordable, accessible products and meals, that are often a mainstay for low-income households struggling with rising food and fuel prices. The offer a wide variety of food could be including local traditional foods that could contribute towards resilient urban food

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systems because of their resistance to drought or economic shocks [42]. Food vending is also a vital livelihood strategy in African cities, especially for female traders who may have few other income-generating options [25]. Yet, food vendors’ key contributions to African urban economies and to sustaining households in informal settlements are usually disregarded by policy-makers and most researchers [1]. An increasing concern with food security requires that food systems become resilient to ensure sustained provision of affordable food particularly for the poor urban dwellers hence, the informal economy needs to be acknowledged and built for resilience. Informal food trading has become one of the many self-help activities through that the unemployed in most urban areas now earn a livelihood [18, 19]. Beyond just trading food for the traders’ survival, it is now emerging that informal food trading, is also playing a critical role in ensuring urban food security. Today, many African countries and urban areas in particular, are faced with a litany of problems, that have seen the formal markets failing to perform their roles, among them food procurement and distribution. Crush and Frayne [9] counter this through their analysis of the role played by the informal economy. They conclude that the current international concern with food security largely ignores the urban informal food economy and yet as a key urban market in cities, it must be built for resilience in order to keep providing for urban dwellers thus, promoting food security. Informal food traders deal in a variety of food commodities ranging from grain products, processed foods, drinks, fruits vegetables and many other foods. The availability of different food varieties on the market can greatly contribute towards urban food security through enhanced food access and choice and this makes the informal food sector somewhat resilient. The survival of these informal traders is however, threatened by unfriendly policies [33]. In an earlier survey of Gweru’s informal trading, Makaye and Munhande [22] revealed that 15% of the traders interviewed dealt in grain products. These include maize, wheat, rapoko and sorghum. Grain has been traded on the urban informal market in Zimbabwe since early colonial encroachment. As the peasant traditional economy was dislocated and absorbed into the modern colonial economy, grain trading in the emerging urban centres and other commercial areas became an important survival strategy by the indigenous populations [11]. The urban food supply system and its ability to meet the demands of an increasingly poor urban population has received very little attention [41]. Food retailing in Zimbabwean cities is largely structured through the medium of supermarkets that has kept costs high for the poor. The informal sector has expanded to meet new demands but is still relatively restricted unrecognized and unorganised [38]. The prices in formal markets are often higher than in informal markets. Table 1 shows vegetable and sadza1 prices in the informal and formal market of Gweru and the disparities in the prices of the two markets is noted across all cities in Zimbabwe. It is not always the case that all food items are cheaper on the informal market than the formal market but other factors, such as accessibility come into play [37]. Crush and Frayne [9] expand on the interrelated issues of food pricing and location 1A

Zimbabwean staple food prepared from maize meal.

Urban Food Markets and the Resilience Factor in Zimbabwe Table 1 Vegetable and Sadza prices in the informal and formal market of Gweru, July 2007 [22]

Commodity

77

Average

Average

Percentage (%)

Informal sector price

Formal sector price

Difference

Potatoes

$60 000/kg

$80 000/kg

+25

Cabbages

$50 000 per head

$80 000 per head

+37.5

Dried beans

$100 000/kg

$130 000/kg

+23.08

Sweet potatoes

$30 000/kg

–

–

Sadza and stew

$50 000 per plate

$80 000 per plate

+37.5

of food outlets noting that even though supermarkets are more visible and may even offer cheaper food, the urban poor do not necessarily increase their food security by shopping at supermarkets. Food provisioned informally may be more expensive than supermarket food, but continues to be the choice of the urban poor because of geographical access [36]. Proximity and physical access to consumers is by no means equivalent to actual accessibility. Other factors, such as unemployment, inflation, transportation costs and the inconsistent provision of electricity, also contribute to access to food. The issue of food prices in formal versus informal outlets is one that requires further examination, along with a detailed exploration of food-sourcing strategies of food-insecure households. s argue that ensuring food reaches those most affected by undernutrition requires shaping the markets and businesses from that they source food. They note that poor people in rural and urban areas tend to buy food from small enterprises and informal markets hence, these markets need to be acknowledged for providing for the urban poor and need to be included when planning for resilience. Informal markets contribute significantly to food markets, yet they are regularly raided and their existence remains uncertain [25, 33, 35]. This keeps an important contributor to urban food security vulnerable and unsustainable. To make a difference in these markets, development actors have to plan and manage them differently. The laws and policies of African cities must positively reflect the importance of these markets [40].

3 Emerging Issues Zimbabwean cities have both formal and informal markets. Formal markets comprise of wholesales, restaurants, convenience stores and most importantly food retailers, such as supermarkets whilst informal markets comprise of informal traders ranging from those operating corner stores, food outlets, street vendors and those operating

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tuckshops including those selling food. Formal markets, such as supermarkets, have been successful in penetrating some low-income communities in most urban areas. The formal markets often fail to meet the consumption strategies of the poorest households and this has resulted in the rise of the informal sector [37]. This is where the informal markets fill the needs gap by packaging in smaller sizes that even the poor can afford. Food retailing in Zimbabwean cities is largely structured through the medium of supermarkets and other formal markets that are not responsive and have kept costs high for the poor. The informal sector has expanded to meet new demands but is still relatively restricted and unorganised. The prices in formal markets are often higher than in informal markets. The lack of formal safety nets and the shifting of responsibility for coping with food insecurity away from the state towards the individual and household level have been, undoubtedly, the major driving factors towards informality. Due to the important contribution of the informal markets’ authorities must facilitate for their capacity to; survive, adapt and grow in the face of chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience so that they can be resilient. There are useful linkages between rural areas and urban areas with regards to food. The food produced in peri-urban areas and rural hinterlands contributes to supplies for both urban areas and their rural surroundings, while urban areas supply the markets upon that agricultural livelihoods depend. This cements the need for urban markets to be resilient as they do not only cater for the urban dwellers but also the rural hinterlands. When the supply side experiences chronic stresses and acute shocks, food retailers and households would need to find alternative sources of food and rebuild food supply chains, that cannot be done quickly. The recent restrictions imposed as measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus have highlighted the importance of the rural–urban food linkages and the need to nurture and develop the linkages. The high demand on supermarkets has shown the invisible importance of other markets. The size and role of the informal sector has also been found to increase during economic downturns and periods of economic adjustment and transition [37]. Informality can clearly be looked at from a more optimistic perspective as a coping strategy that improves the resilience factor of urban markets. Where urban food markets fail, informal markets can step in and provide a wide variety of produce offered on these markets. This resilience is desirable because in situations where some food items are no longer available, there will still be many substitutes available. Governments must be concerned about the resilience of their urban food markets to limit the vulnerabilities of these markets. They must continuously devise strategies to make markets more resilient to catastrophes and destabilising shocks. This will guarantee urban dwellers a continuous supply of affordable varied food thus, becoming food secure.

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4 Lessons Learnt This analysis has exposed the need for comprehensive accurate food data. Research is required on the vulnerabilities of food systems and also on assessing and quantifying the capacity for urban production and the economic and social benefits of an orientation to local production and consumption. Substituting imported food with local production can make formal urban food markets more resilient against shocks lessening the dependence on distant supply sources. This can be very beneficial especially at this time when Zimbabwe is experiencing constant shortages of inputs to the food system, such as fuel for transport and foreign currency for imports. The closer and more localised the supplies the less the fuel consumption and risk of shortages, the greater the resilience of the country’s urban food markets. There are many players in the urban food system in general and food markets in particular. With this recognition, local governments must extensively engage on the basis of multi stakeholder participation and dialogue. Strategies and action plans to improve urban food systems as a whole and urban food markets in particular must be inclusive and participatory. This must be built on the basis of more concrete data and more coherent frameworks that lead to resilient urban food markets with decision-makers translating research data into workable realistic context-specific policies and actions. Determining how to incorporate all actors in such a big exercise can be a challenge. Bringing in businesses, and academics, government officials and different consumers means there will be different perspectives on the food system and its market structure. This is complex and difficult and involves the use of a variety of skills, in working towards resilience. The result of such a multi stakeholder participation process will bring a variety of viable ideas to ensure urban food markets are not just sustainable but are also resilient. Access to market information is vital in developing resilient and sustainable urban food markets. During economic downturns, efficient and effective sharing of information between government agencies and private sector food businesses can help markets return to normal as quickly as possible. Sometimes businesses do not know who to contact for relevant and timely information hence, they may settle for speculating. Government agencies need to devise the best way to effectively share information regarding impending changes that may affect food markets, such as fuel price increases so that businesses are better prepared. The same applies to information on important business enablers, such as power availability so that the food industry is prepared and averts losses. The association of the Zimbabwean Government with private sector food businesses can also help to catalyse food retailers to establish business continuity plans and assist them with resilience planning. Government agencies can also provide capital to business owners to help them rebuild and reopen for business after experiencing destabilising shocks. Besides establishing business continuity plans, the existence of emergency funding plans for food businesses and business continuity plans in each city can be an effective way to make urban food markets more resilient against chronic stresses and acute shocks.

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The existence of informal food markets is out of public need and is necessary and complimentary to the formal markets. The literature search revealed that varied factors besides the failures of the formal urban food markets have motivated traders to engage in informal food trading within Zimbabwean cities. These factors include unemployment, poor salaries and wages, lack of skills and opportunities created by food shortages. Some of the circumstances upon that the informal sector is perceived maybe negative but a factual understanding of the informal sector is useful in changing those perceptions. An increasing concern with food security requires that urban food markets become resilient to ensure sustained provision of affordable food particularly for the poor urban dwellers hence, the informal economy needs to be acknowledged and built for resilience. Capacity building can be done even for informal businesses. Forster et al. [13] in the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact recommended acknowledging the informal sector’s contribution to urban food systems in terms of food supply, job creation, promotion of local diets and environment management and providing appropriate support and training in areas, such as food safety, sustainable diets, waste prevention and management. It is important for cities to have food policies for effective food markets. Forster et al. [13] recommends actions for food supply and distribution through the provision of policy and programme support for municipal public markets including farmers’ markets, informal markets, retail and wholesale markets, restaurants and other food distributors. He also recommends recognizing different approaches by cities working with private and public components of market systems. The policies should include improving and expanding support for infrastructure related to market systems that link urban buyers to urban, peri-urban and rural sellers while also building social cohesion and trust, supporting cultural exchange and ensuring sustainable livelihood, especially for women and young entrepreneurs was yet another recommendation. Zimbabwean cities can adopt these recommendations so that they develop resilient urban food markets. Policies must be examined comprehensively to check how they affect each other. Some government agencies may have policies and practices that unintentionally impede the operation or recovery of food businesses. These could be policies on food safety inspections, the construction permit process and food transportation restrictions. In Zimbabwean cities, food processing plants, warehouse suppliers and food retail stores are routinely inspected by local or state agencies to ensure a safe food supply and require licences to operate to be renewed. After experiencing destabilising shocks such as the shocks brought by COVID-19, businesses may be unable to resume operations until passing inspections or gaining a licence. Others may never reopen after being closed as a result of the restrictions. This process, coupled with limited resources for licensing and inspections, may lead to delays in the re-opening of food businesses. Government agencies, policies and practices must be formulated in a way that is responsive, efficient and effective so that they promote the resilience of urban food markets rather than hinder them.

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5 Discussion Food resilience and the sustainability of urban food markets is dependent on a number of different sectors and factors including urban planning, the regulatory framework and infrastructure. It is dependent on different forms of infrastructure, such as electricity, roads, water supply and telecommunication. For example, an extended power disruption affects the availability of fresh food to a large number of urban dwellers and even rural communities supplied by cities. Various municipal and provincial government agencies will need to be actively engaged in helping urban markets recover quickly after experiencing chronic stresses and acute shocks. In Zimbabwe, the urban market stakeholders are concerned about the lack of clear communication about power cuts, intermittent water supply and fuel shortages as these affect the food provisioning systems of cities. Different sectors have a critical role in building resilient and sustainable food systems, including being prepared in the event of destabilising shocks. There is value in understanding how key infrastructures on that the food sector relies could be at risk due to economic downturns and to identify ways to improve resilience of the urban food system as a whole and the urban food markets in particular. Markets are important because their instability can cause social problems and even violence [8]. The 2008 food riots in several cities across Africa and other parts of the world brought to the fore the reality of violence when populations face hunger. Whilst many governments continue to believe only in market forces, good practice also means their involvement in creating sustainable and resilient food markets. Cities must therefore play their part, such as planning for a robust food system, setting aside suitable land for urban food markets, creating efficient transport corridors to move affordable food and friendly regulations that allows most stakeholders to do business legally. The food provisioning system of any city across the globe, whether small or large, is always a hybrid food system, that is, it combines different modes of food provisioning and consumption (institutional, retail, street foods, etc.). Sources of city food also differs significantly. Some cities are mainly, though not exclusively, fed by urban, peri-urban and nearby rural farms and food processors, while other cities rely largely, though not entirely, on food produced and processed in other countries or continents [46]. In all cases, however, food systems link rural and urban communities in a region within a country, across regions and sometimes between countries and continents. Cities and urban food supply systems play an important role in shaping their surrounding and more distant rural areas where land use, food production, environmental management, transport and distribution, marketing, consumption and waste generation is concerned. Thus, the resilience of urban food markets becomes of paramount importance as these markets do not only serve urban dwellers but also rural populations. They are part of a comprehensive system. They must also be responsive so that even when unexpected shocks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the city’s capacity to supply food must remain intact.

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Hostile legislative frameworks can impede the resilience of urban food markets. In Harare, Zimbabwe, for example, street food selling is illegal. Makaye and Munhande [22] have noted that as the food deficit situation reached precarious levels in the period 2000–2003, the Government promulgated a new grain marketing policy, the Statutory Instrument No 235A of July 16, 2001 that intended to address the maize shortage and build up official stock levels. The instrument stipulated that maize, wheat and their milled products were controlled commodities and that the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) was the sole buyer and seller of maize and wheat. The intended goal of rebuilding national stocks was not realised, as the prices offered were too low than those offered in the producing areas by individuals. GMB also lacked the infrastructure and transport to enable the farmers to bring the grain to the depots at profit. This resulted in farmers withholding their grain, that, in turn, greatly affected urban areas that rely on imports from the rural areas. An environment conducive for informal food trading was thus created. Although literature indicates a strong correlation exists between supply of grain and its availability on the informal market, informal grain trading has become a permanent activity. Some traders at Kudzanai Market in the City of Gweru indicated that they always deal in grain products even in times of adequate supply on the formal market. It has been noted that even during times of adequate supply, most consumers would prefer to buy from the informal market, as prices tend to go below the formal market prices. It is thus clear that informal urban food traders play a critical role in ensuring urban food security. During periods of low supply, they travel long distances to make grain available in the city. In times of plenty supply they also ensure that the poorest of the urban poor have a meal as they sell their grain much cheaper than the formal market [22].

6 Conclusion Urban food markets constitute an important component of urban food systems. They contribute to a city’s resilience. Resilient urban food markets must be responsive and have the capacity to adapt and grow even when faced by chronic stresses and acute shocks that sometimes affect many cities. With Zimbabwe experiencing an extremely volatile economic environment, building resilience in the urban food market is important. Resilience must be developed in both formal and informal markets since they complement each other and are both important to Zimbabwe’s urban food systems. Formal markets comprise of wholesales, restaurants, convenience stores and most importantly food retailers, such as supermarkets whilst informal markets comprise of informal traders ranging from those operating corner stores, food outlets, street vendors and those operating tuckshops and of concern are those selling food. The formal food markets in Zimbabwe are solid and very structured as they are supported by legislation. Informal markets however, tend to be vulnerable as they are in most instances deemed illegal and subjected to raids and arrests. It was demonstrated in the chapter that informal food markets provide culturally accepted

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foods and better serve most low-income residents and so are just as important as formal markets. They must be nurtured and supported because they are more flexible and respond better to the peculiar needs of local and poor people by packaging in smaller packs and operate in flexible hours. The size and role of the informal sector has also been found to increase during economic downturns and periods of economic adjustment and transition hence, informal markets can be considered as a coping strategy that improves the resilience factor of urban markets. An increasing concern with food security requires that urban food markets whether formal or informal become resilient to ensure sustained provision of food for urban dwellers and the rural hinterlands dependent on urban markets. Urban food markets must be equipped to rapidly return to normal operations after experiencing destabilising shocks. COVID19 has exposed the fragility of some of these markets. Zimbabwean cities must develop friendly policies and conduct comprehensive inclusive planning for urban food systems in order to come up with resilient and sustainable food markets.

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Food Waste in Urban Zimbabwe: Options for Food Recycling Tinashe N. Kanonhuhwa and Innocent Chirisa

Abstract As part of the global world agenda to reduce extreme poverty and hunger, many countries are faced with the need to reduce food waste through recycling and reuse. Zimbabwe is no exception, as motivated by the Sustainable Development Goals of 2015 which aims at attaining zero hunger by 2030 and the New Urban Agenda which envisions that cities and huan settlements must provide access to quality services in the form of food nutrition and security. Through Zimbabwe’s regulatory framework, the Environmental Management Act and the Urban Councils Act, have been used as tools to promote food waste reuse and recycling hence, the reduction in food waste through recycling at household and even at commercial levels. However, local authorities suffer from a lack of capacity to effectively collect waste hence, the need to effectively deal with issues regarding food waste from the household level. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has also threatened food security in the African region and hence, the need to effectively maximise on food recycling and reuse measures. The chapter concludes that food waste recycling and reuse are an essential component for urban environments to thrive excellently, as this does not only cut on food waste to guarantee food security for the poor, but also promotes healthier and cleaner working and living environments for the populace. Keywords Environmental sustainability · Was management · Compliance · Hygiene · Human habitat

T. N. Kanonhuhwa (B) · I. Chirisa Department of Demography Settlement and Development, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe e-mail: [email protected] I. Chirisa e-mail: [email protected] I. Chirisa Department of Urban & Regional Planning, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 P. Toriro and I. Chirisa (eds.), Environmental Resilience, Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0305-1_6

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1 Introduction The concept of food waste and options for food recycling has increasingly gained discourse in the academic field. This is motivated by the increase in urban population and the need by governments to effectively feed its population. Food is regarded as a basic right [8]. Whilst Zimbabwe’s Sustainable Development Goal number 2 aims at eliminating hunger by 2030, the New Urbanism Agenda envisions cities and human settlements capable of providing food security. Therefore, the wastage of food becomes an intolerable thing to do in a world faced with increasing population numbers and the needs by governments to effectively feed the population. However, the issues revolving around food losses has been viewed with two major lenses, the food perspective that emphasises food security concerns, or the waste perspective that is mainly concerned about the environment, with the duality of such approaches contributing to confusion regarding the scope and definition of food losses and waste [29]. The concept of food waste is therefore, two sided as it draws from the two dominant forces of genuine food security concerns and the environmental concern. This chapter considers food waste as both an environmental concern and a food security concern. Of the food produced for human consumption globally, between half to a third of the food is wasted [23]. The rate at which food is wasted becomes worrisome due to the need to eliminate hunger, achieve food security and improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture as motivated by Zimbabwe’s Sustainable Development Goal number 2 and the New Urban Agenda which aims at ensuring that food security is ensured in human habitats.. Food waste consists of edible and inedible components and the costs of food waste comes in the form of economic, social and environmental costs [12]. Costs to the environment involves the creation of an unpleasant environment and this may, in turn, cause an environment unfit for human and animal habitation. This chapter discuses Food Waste in Urban Zimbabwe with a view to decipher Options for Food Recycling.

2 Literature Review Food Loss Waste (FLW) is defined as a decrease, at all stages of the food chain from harvest to consumption in mass, of food that was originally intended for human consumption, regardless of the cause ([29]: 22). The United Nations Statistics Division in TARSCH and CFH ([30]: 5), defines solid wastes as: all materials that are not prime products, for that the person generating the material has no further use in terms of his/her own purposes of production, transformation or consumption and that he/she wants to dispose and that is not intended to be disposed using a pipeline.

The production process up to consumption of the final product is a process characterised by leakages with loses at each stage. Figure 1 is a diagrammatic representation of the losses incurred at each stage from production to consumption.

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Fig. 1 Schematic representation of food losses and waste along the food chain [29]

The diagram indicates that, from production to consumption, food is lost at various stages, with some of it being edible and non-edible. Food loses may happen at industrial or consumption level and the product may be in the form of solid waste. Food waste dumping on the land, has potential to damage the environment as shown in Fig. 2. Food waste has the potential to destroy the environment if not handled properly. Negative impacts of food waste may affect the upstream population differently from those downstream. Upstream environmental impacts include land waste and water waste and those downstream may suffer more as a result of poor water quality.

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Fig. 2 Environmental impacts of food waste [21]

Peri urban agriculture may help in filtering waste water (when appropriate) and, in turn, positively impact the effective functioning of the ecosystem and, in turn, provide animal habitat [14]. Peri-urban agricultural practices may therefore prove fruitful cleaning waste water through infiltration and facilitating ground water recharge. Increased pollution on land and water also have the overall negative health impact on citizens as it has potential to cause disease outbreaks, such as cholera and malaria, with the source being the illegal accumulation of waste materials through illegal dumping in most urban neighbourhoods. In this case, the sorting of waste may prove fruitful by separating degradable material (capable of forming compost) from nondegradable material, such as plastics and glass for easier collection and recycling. Furthermore, the New Urban Agenda (NUA) also encourages cities to have waste disposal facilities [34] which in turn promotes a cleaner environment especially for the disposal of non-edible waste. Increased food waste may also come as a food security concern hence, the need for food recycling measures. Food recycling refers to the collection, sorting and processing of unwanted food into new products that may be used for the production of other goods. The final product may be edible in the form of dried food or non-edible, such as soap, that may be a by-product to be used for other purposes, such as cleaning. It is important for governments, households and industry to engage in food re-use and recycling as it saves on the economic, social and environmental costs. The Food Recovery hierarchy helps organisations strategize ways that to prevent and divert food waste, with the upper levels of the hierarchy being the best in terms preventing and diverting wasted food as they create the most benefits for the environment, society and the economy [7]. Figure 3 shows the Food Recovery Hierarchy. The food recovery hierarchy gives various options upon that recycled food may fall into and one of the major reasons for food recycling and reuse would be to feed the hungry through donations to charity, food banks and shelter. The food recovery hierarchy may prove useful also to the tourism and hospitality sector that is dominated by restaurants and hotels. It is therefore, evident that food waste recycling is important to both the environment and mankind. Furthermore, as faced by the contagious COVID-19 pandemic which has ravaged many nations, global food security for many nations is under threat. Discovered in the city of Wuhan, China in 2019, the

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Fig. 3 Food recovery hierarchy [7]

COVID-19 pandemic has been known for its ability to spread through coughing or sneezing and sue to its highly contagious nature and inability to find a cure (so far), most countries have turned to non-pharmaceutical intervention, such as closure of businesses except critical positions and the banning of social gatherings, among others [10, 13, 15, 25]. In this regard, trading between various countries would be limited posing a threat to food security as it may become difficult to import in some instances. It is also argued that, the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will be most felt in poor and densely populated urban areas especially those in informal settlements [32], and those who mainly rely on the informal sector as it becomes difficult for them to stock up food especially when faced with the pandemic [33]. This in turn reduces household spending on food [35]. In such cases, the urgency to save food as a country becomes necessary so that, positive trickling down effects can also benefit the poor in the form of cheaper recycled food. In order to regulate the loss of food at industrial down to household levels, Governments are faced with the challenge to ensure that all activities are governed by law and the law must be thoroughly enforced in order to ensure compliance between the various food wasters, and ensure the efficient and healthy functioning of the urban system. Law to control food waste emission and management becomes a critical

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aspect in ensuring that food is not wasted and the environment is kept safe and this shall be discussed in relation to three cases, each from a global, regional and local scales.

3 Law Regulations on Food Waste Emitters In order to effectively control development and ensure a clean working and liveable environment, with lower levels of poverty, Governments must come up with rules and regulations to govern and control how waste is disposed in the various facets of the economy, especially industry and households. Focus shall now be directed to the cases of Japan, South Africa and Zimbabwe, in order to appreciate improvements made in terms of the control measures by governments directed towards the control of food waste disposal in the different countries. In Japan, in order to create a clean and sustainable liveable and working environment fit for human and wildlife habitation, recycling of food waste becomes an important part in ensuring the effective functionality of the urban system. The food recycling law was promulgated in 2001 [26] and this law was a wakeup call for managers of food waste to be innovative and come up with strategies aimed at recycling waste food. The law also required that, food waste must be used to produce compost, animal feed, and extraction of heat at incineration sites [28]. The law therefore, guided many activities and instead of seeing waste as a problem, organisations and individuals would start seeing the waste material as an asset with many benefits. At the core of Japan’s environmental policy are the major aims of becoming a recycle-oriented society and a low carbon society [20]. Waste on Japan’s land would be reduced, thus producing a cleaner environment and at the same time reduce the economic costs associated with the generation and disposal of food waste. Japan’s primary recycling method is composting and the law demands that food waste emitters recycle their food waste in to compost, animal feed or biogas [28]. It is clear that, Japan Recycling Law regulates manufacturing activities and fruitful by-products, such as biogas used for cooking, animal feed and compost for agriculture. The law also has benefits, such as reduction in the carbon footprint, thus, preventing the continuation of problems, such as pollution and continued emission of greenhouse gasses. The Waste Policy and Regulation of South Africa starts from the Environmental Conservation Act (Act 73 of 1989), with the main aim of permitting, controlling and managing waste, whilst limited waste policy regulations emerged between 1989 and 2007 [9]. Introduction of policy regulations from as early as 1989 shows efforts towards bettering the environment through waste control measures. The NEM: Waste Act (Act 26 of 2004) and the National Environmental Management (NEM): Waste Act (Act 59 of 2008), were all instruments to manage waste [9]. This shows that even at regional level, efforts to control and manage waste disposals in urban centres were implemented through law and regulatory practices.

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Legislation to guide solid waste disposal and management in Zimbabwe is guided by the Environmental Management Act (EMA) and the Urban Councils Act. Chapter 20:27 Section 70 (1) of the EMA Act prohibits people from discharging waste in a way that causes human ill health or environmental pollution [2]. People disposing litter or waste illegally at undesignated places risk paying penalty fees if caught. The penalty fee for illegal dumping for an individual, council or company ranges from US$1 500 to US$500 depending on offence committed [18]. Paying such heavy penalty fees would in a way deter people from illegally dumping waste, as they would fear being caught. The EMA Act is regulatory in nature as it restricts people from illegally disposing waste. The Act fosters an integrated approach to solid waste management that promotes the reuse, reclaiming and recycling of materials from waste (Muswere and Rodic-Wiersma 2004). The Act therefore, encourages the concepts of re-use and recycling as they have a positive effect of reducing the amount of waste to be totally disposed. The Urban Councils Act Chapter 29:15 designates to urban local authorities with the responsibility to provide solid waste collection, transportation and disposal services in areas under their jurisdiction [2]. Local Authorities and the people are both guided by the law, with people having the responsibility to dispose waste in legal places and bins and Local Authorities having the overall responsibility to collect the waste various neighbourhoods, city centres and industries.

4 Emerging Issues in Zimbabwe and Options for Recycling The main crux of this chapter is centred upon food waste in Zimbabwe, how it is being handled and decipher options for food recycling. Two cases of Harare and Bulawayo cities were analysed to understand food waste disposal and management in these areas.

4.1 Case of Harare The issues revolving around chaos in the governance of waste management in Zimbabwe have their roots in the colonial era where the native suburbs were regarded as areas of cheap labour, whilst no serious efforts were directed towards solving emerging problems, particularly those of waste management [31]. In the post-colonial period, the rate of urbanisation increased magnificently, placing more pressure on the existing high-density neighbourhoods of Mbare and Mufakose. The increase in population in the old neighbourhoods would also imply an increase in the waste generated. Waste management in the City of Harare was received with much confusion and uncertainty after the country’s independence in 1980. The responsibility for waste management after independence, has changed hands from one department to the

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Table 1 The six major categories of solid waste in Harare Source

Typical waste generators

Types of solid wastes

Household or domestic

Single and multifamily dwellings

Food wastes, paper, cardboard, plastics, cans, yard waste, textiles, leather, wood, glass, and household hazardous wastes etc.

Commercial

Stores, markets, office buildings, restaurants, shops, bars

Packaging and container materials (cardboard and plastics), used office paper, wood shavings, food waste, hazardous waste, electronic-waste etc.

Industrial

Light and heavy manufacturing

Housekeeping wastes, packaging, food waste, demolition materials, slag, mineral tailings, electronic-waste, batteries, pesticides, coolants, lubricants etc.

Institutional

Police camps, barracks, schools, hospitals, prisons

Food wastes, used paper and plastics, used needles, syringes, and gloves, wood, steel, concrete wastes etc.

Street sweepings/Municipal services

High density neighbourhoods

Dust/sand, leaves, paper, human and animal excreta, sludge water, electronic-waste etc.

Construction debris

New and old building sites

Wood, brick-stones, concrete, glass and metals

Source Tsiko and Togarepi [31]

other within the City of Harare (CoH), with each change further contributing to the deterioration of the system [31]. Accountability was lost as it became difficult to trace the inefficiency points of the responsible departments. The responsibility for waste management first lay in the hands of the Department of Works before 1996, with the responsibility being transferred to the Department of Health in and after 1996, later resulting in the Health department subcontracting private companies to manage 56% of waste whilst retaining the remaining 44% [31]. This showed a weaker system in terms of accepting and taking sole responsibility for the management of waste within the CoH. At least half of the world’s population now live in cities [4]. Drechsel and Kunze [5] stress that increased urbanisation in Sub-Saharan Africa has not only brought challenges to rural–urban planning in relation to food security, but also in relation to waste management. This presents a challenge for Zimbabwe’s local authorities, for them to match their service delivery with the increase in waste generated as a result

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of the increase in population. Solid-waste falls in to various categories and Table 1 shows the six major sources of solid waste in Harare. The City of Harare does contain more sources of solid waste, some of which produce food waste, such as households, institutional facilities, inclusive of police camps and prisons, and light and heavy industrial sites. Most Zimbabwean urban centres are now characterised by the ‘mushrooming’ of fast food stalls, with Local Authorities lacking the will power to contain illegal vending [16]. Illegal vending sites and fast food stalls, are all contributory to the increased generation and disposal of solid food waste in the form of cooked or uncooked leftover food and rotten fruits and vegetables. Furthermore, it is argued that, Zimbabwe produces 2.5 million tonnes of solid waste annually, with the majority emanating from household and industrial waste [30]. It is only 20% of the urban solid waste that is collected and disposed of properly [18]. This shows that, of the significant amount of waste produced, only 20% is effectively accounted for in urban areas. Food waste however, inevitably constitutes part of this solid waste and this mainly emanates from households, industrial sites, vending stalls, restaurants and hotels, among other sources. It is often argued that, informal waste harvesting involves the selection of selected waste items for various purposes including that of subsistence in order for families to provide for food, clothing and shelter, for sale and wages [17]. Many people have considered the collection of selected solid waste materials as a source of income by collecting what is needed by a particular company and later selling the collected material to the company of interest. Selected items for generation of income may be in the form of plastics, bottles and cans. In a study carried out in Budiriro, various waste management strategies to manage waste include the 4Rs that are Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Rethink [22]. These strategies may prove useful in times of crises, such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic that has affected the global economy since the end of March. For most people, especially in the informal sector, accessing cheaper recycled foods may reduce the level of food insecurity in families. Waste materials may be used to produce other products for resale, such as doormats, made from mealie-meal sacks, thus generating an income through value addition. Re-use of food products may also be witnessed in homes, food courts, restaurants and hotels where left-over roasted meat, is re-cooked and stewed to be sold again as a different menu. Instead of throwing away the roasted meat, that may be going bad, innovative thinking may work best in designing a new purpose for the meat. Left-over sadza may be used in homes to make mahewu that may make a very nutritious meal supplement. Educating people on how to store food through various means, such as drying of meat and fish for instance, may make it last longer without going bad, thus cutting on food waste. In Harare, companies to facilitate the recycling of cans for re-use include Collecta-can and Eden Recycling Company in Mabelreign-Harare and Greendale Waste Collection and Recycling in Greendale. The Friendship Bench in Eastlea makes bags out of plastic, while companies, such as Thomhilton Plastic Centre and First Pack, all in Harare are involved in the buying of plastics and pellets. Besides being a

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source of income for many, waste materials on urban roads and dumpsites is reduced as people collect cans and plastics for resale.

4.2 Case of Bulawayo Like any other Local Authorities, the Bulawayo City Council (BCC) is also faced with the challenge of provision of effective refuse collection services, as evidence by some low-income residential areas going for over a month without being offered solid waste collection service [18]. With the increase in inability by the BCC to effectively collect waste, evidence of an increase in the generation of solid waste is evident due to the increase in illegal dumping in the city’s urban areas [19]. It is evident that the major Local Authorities of Harare and Bulawayo are all faced with the refuse collection and management challenge hence, the need for increased capacity to manage solid waste through finance lobbying, and the rethinking of innovative waste management strategies aimed at managing waste at city or neighbourhood levels. Figure 4 shows the current waste management system for Bulawayo City Council. The BCC solid waste disposal system shows that some of the solid waste ends up at illegal sites, whilst others is changed in to compost for use in agricultural projects and other material is gotten rid of through burning. Collection of waste by municipal workers is not a smooth process as it may also result in scattering of material in the streets, resulting in land pollution. The transportation of waste material by municipal vehicles may also result in spillage further causing land and air pollution. The end result of burning waste, illegal dumping, waste spillage by municipal vehicle and waste scattering by municipal workers when collecting all have the adverse effects of causing air, water and soil pollution. In 2009, Bulawayo adopted a non-convention approach to the management of solid waste in the form of Community Based Solid Waste Management that aimed at involving the public and private actors in the management of solid waste [27]. In this case, the public is regarded as an active player in the cleaning up of own neighbourhoods and also an income generating activity through the selling of some of the waste materials collected. Involving the local people would make them have a sense of belonging and thus, reduce resistance to change. Country wide, every first Friday of the month is now an official litter collection day for companies as a national campaign to reduce waste on the road and in workplaces. This does not only promote enhancement of a clean working environment, but also give people a sense of belonging and an ‘environment conscious’ mind by constantly reminding them that the environment ought to be kept clean always.

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Fig. 4 The components of solid waste management system in Bulawayo Municipality. Source Mwanza and Phiri [19]

5 Lessons Learnt In solid waste management, innovativeness in dealing with various ways to dispose waste becomes critical. The process of composting of food and yard waste may produce a useful product in the end [11]. Food waste contains plant nutrients that mainly originate from agriculture [3]. Recycling solid waste into compost may prove advantageous when applied to arable land as they can be used as fertilisers, resulting in the creation of fertile land. Fertile land may, in turn, produce a better yield as compared to in-fertile land.

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In a nation faced with an increase in number of mouths to feed as testimony to the increase in populations in Zimbabwe’s urban centres, the re-use of foods and recycling of food may prove fruitful. Strategies for food preservation, such as the drying of cooked food may be used as a way to feed the poorer portion of the population, especially in times of crises and pandemics, such as the recent COVID19, and this may be in line with the New Urban Agenda which seeks to ensure food security for the urban populace. Drying food instead of simply throwing it away, may save governments by facilitating the re-sale of the dried food at cheaper and affordable prices to those who can-not afford fresh food. Dried food may equally be nutritious as it may still retain part of the nutrients. Environmental burdens and risks to human health may be reduced through proper management and recycling of huge volumes of food waste [24]. The recycling of waste may prevent more waste to be dumped on the land and this may, in turn, prevent the outbreak of diseases, such as cholera and malaria as piles of dumps accumulate. The creation and maintenance of clean environment is important to ensuring a healthy working and living environment for both people and animals. Pham et al. [24], argue that, food waste is an untapped resource with great potential for energy production. Burning of solid waste has potential to generate energy that may be used for many uses including the production of green electricity as in the case of some developed countries, such as Germany. The electricity generated may be used for lighting houses and this would cut the electricity bill for the nation and for a country, like Zimbabwe, that sometimes imports electricity, generating electricity through solid waste may be of great importance. Communities’ involvement through educational programs and clean-up campaigns may prove very useful in regulating food waste and reducing the number of people who throw away leftover food from food courts in roads and bins. The BCC and HCC must also improve on issues of transparency and accountability by appointing a single department to deal with refuse collection and not timeously shift responsibility to other departments. The Local Authorities must also increase capacity by lobbying for finance from government and private actors in order to suit demand and practice consistence in the collection of refuse countrywide, especially in the high-density residential areas that are now characterised by dense population numbers.

6 Discussion Urban councils have experienced difficulties in the consistent and effective collection of waste as testimony to increase in population numbers post-independence. The increase in densities has resulted in failure by urban local authorities to provide services. Capacity by Local Authorities to collect waste dropped from 80% in the mid-1990s to 30% in some large cities and towns in the year 2006, with informal settlements and high-density residential areas suffering the most [30]. Due to large population numbers, more waste is generated from low-income residential areas and

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illegal settlements, such as parts of Hopley Farm, that do not have clear roads for the municipal waste vehicle to navigate through. It is however, important to note that, part of the waste being disposed is food waste. It is further acknowledged that, the current authority is struggling to manage the waste under tight budgets; highly inadequate and malfunctioning equipment; inefficient collection practices with variable levels of service, poor and unhygienic operating practices; including no environmental control systems; open burning of garbage; indiscriminate illegal dumping and littering; and a public with seemingly little sensitivity to the garbage around them or any awareness of what represents responsible waste management ([31]: 692). This shows how detrimental the Zimbabwean situation is, hence, the need for the government, and donors to assist urban local authorities financially in order to capacitate them with the relevant skill and equipment needed in effectively managing waste. It has been explained that governments regard food as a basic right hence, the need by governments to facilitate and enforce the saving of food before disposal through re-use, recycling and rethinking innovative ways to preserve leftover food, such as implementing the drying method, in some instances. Preservation of food is motivated by the Sustainable Development Goals that aims at reducing hunger and poverty, and the New Urban Agenda which has a vision to promote food security in human settlements. Therefore, the preservation of food would help in preserving some food for the poor who may not afford refined or more processed foods. It has been revealed that, in times of pandemics such as the COVID-19 disease, the poor are the most vulnerable. Therefore, preserving some of the food through recycling may be an important step towards preventing many from enduring long periods of hunger during difficult times. The concept of waste reuse in food cultivation is not new to Africa, with most African countries having traditionally used various types of organic material to improve on productivity [1]. Formation of compost from food waste becomes handy in facilitating a good yield in food production. Drescher [6], further supports the need to maximise benefits from urban agriculture as it also improves on food security and also helps city authorities solve some of the problems through integrated programmes of waste water reuse and recycling. Waste water may be channelled to facilitate all year-round food/vegetable production hence, support market gardening activities in urban areas, thus improving the ability of urban households to generate food. The chapter also notes that, the recycling of food is also a source of income, as it guarantees that something is at least recovered through reselling of dried food or through the stewing of dried meat going bad in restaurants and hotels. The recycling of some of the food and drink containers in the form of bottles and cans, have also proven to be a source of income, with recycling companies, well spread in Harare. The re-selling of used cans and bottles has now become a source of livelihood for many hence, the improvement in people’s livelihood especially the poor. The dumping of food waste also has a negative effect on the environment through the creation of land and air pollution, with these having a negative effect on people’s

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health and well-being. In efforts to improve on environmental awareness, the Government of Zimbabwe have come up with legislation to prohibit industries and households to illegally dispose waste materials in undesignated areas. This has been enforced through the EMA Act and the Urban Councils Act in order to guide people by laying down restrictions and punishments that offenders may suffer from. The government has also introduced clean up campaigns in business organisations, hospitals and schools, for various members of staff to lead by example and collect refuse and litter in their work places every first Friday of the month.

7 Conclusion It can be concluded that, food waste recycling and reuse constitutes an important component in ensuring the effective functioning of an urban system in terms of guaranteeing for food security for the populace (in good times and bad) and as a waste reduction measure to ensure a clean and safe working and living environment for both flora and fauna. It is also noted that the Zimbabwean government has made great strides in terms of providing legislature to ensure that the disposal of waste at household, industrial and local authority levels are all ensured.

References 1. Asomani-Boateng R, Haight M (1999) Reusing organic solid waste in urban farming in African cities: a challenge for urban planners. Third World Plan Rev 21(4):411 2. Chatira-Muchopa B, Chidarikire M, Tarisayi KS (2019) Solid waste management practices in Zimbabwe: a case study of one secondary school. J Transdiscipl Res South Afr 15(1):5 3. Chiew YL, Spångberg J, Baky A, Hansson PA, Jönsson H (2015) Environmental impact of recycling digested food waste as a fertilizer in agriculture—a case study. Resour Conserv Recycl 95:1–14 4. Cohen B (2006) Urbanization in developing countries: Current trends, future projections, and key challenges for sustainability. Technol Soc 28(1–2):63–80 5. Drechsel P, Kunze D (eds) (2001) Waste composting for urban and peri-urban agriculture: closing the rural-urban nutrient cycle in sub-Saharan Africa. CABI 6. Drescher AW (2002) Food for the cities: urban agriculture in developing countries. In: International conference on urban horticulture, vol 643, pp 227–231 7. EPA RWF, Packaging: A Guide for Food Services and Restaurants (2015) United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 8. Frison C, Claeys P (2014) Right to food in international law. Encyclopaedia of food and agricultural ethics, pp 1617–1624 9. Godfrey L, Oelofse S (2017) Historial review of waste management and recycling in South Africa. Resources 6(4):57 10. Hsiang S, Allen D, Annan-Phan S, Bell K, Bolliger I, Chong T, Druckenmiller H, Huang LY, Hultgren A, Krasovich E, Lau P (2020) The effect of large-scale anti-contagion policies on the COVID-19 pandemic. Nature 584(7820):262–267 11. Jerie S (2006) Analysis of institutional solid waste management in Gweru, Zimbabwe. East Afr Soc Sci Res Rev 22(1):103–125

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12. de Lange W, Nahman A (2015) Costs of food waste in South Africa: incorporating inedible food waste. Waste Manag 40:167–172 13. Law PK (2020) COVID-19 pandemic: its origin, implications and treatments. Open J Regen Med 9(02):43 14. Lerner AM, Eakin H (2011) An obsolete dichotomy? Rethinking the rural–urban interface in terms of food security and production in the global south. Geogr J 177(4):311–320 15. Lewandowski P (2020) Occupational exposure to contagion and the spread of COVID-19 in Europe. https://ftp.iza.org/dp13227.pdf. Accessed 5 Sept 2020 16. Makwara EC, Snodia S (2013) Confronting the reckless gambling with people’s health and lives: urban solid waste management in Zimbabwe. Eur J Sustain Dev 2(1):67–98 17. Masocha M (2006) Informal waste harvesting in Victoria Falls town, Zimbabwe: socioeconomic benefits. Habitat Int 30(4):838–848 18. Mudzengerere FH, Chigwenya A (2012) Waste management in Bulawayo city council in Zimbabwe: in search of sustainable waste management in the city. J Sustain Dev Afr 14(1):228–244 19. Mwanza B, Phiri A (2013) Design of a waste management model using integrated solid waste management: a case of Bulawayo City Council. Int J Water Resour Environ Eng 5(2):110–118 20. Nakakubo T, Tokai A, Ohno K (2012) Comparative assessment of technological systems for recycling sludge and food waste aimed at greenhouse gas emissions reduction and phosphorus recovery. J Clean Prod 32:157–172 21. Nguyen L (2018) Food waste management in the hospitality industry: case study: Clarion Hotel Helsinki 22. Nyanzou P, Jerie S (2014) Solid waste management practices in high density suburbs of Zimbabwe: a focus on Budiriro 3, Harare 23. Oelofse SH, Nahman A (2013) Estimating the magnitude of food waste generated in South Africa. Waste Manag Res 31(1):80–86 24. Pham TPT, Kaushik R, Parshetti GK, Mahmood R, Balasubramanian R (2015) Food waste-toenergy conversion technologies: current status and future directions. Waste Manag 38:399–408 25. Pindyck RS (2020) COVID-19 and the welfare effects of reducing contagion (No. w27121). National Bureau of Economic Research 26. Sakai K, Taniguchi M, Miura S, Ohara H, Matsumoto T, Shirai Y (2003) Making plastics from garbage: a novel process for poly-L-lactate production from municipal food waste. J Ind Ecol 7(3–4):63–74 27. Sinthumule NI, Mkumbuzi SH (2019) Participation in community-based solid waste management in Nkulumane suburb, Bulawayo Zimbabwe. Resources 8(1):30 28. Takata M, Fukushima K, Kino-Kimata N, Nagao N, Niwa C, Toda T (2012) The effects of recycling loops in food waste management in Japan: based on the environmental and economic evaluation of food recycling. Sci Total Environ 432:309–317 29. Timmermans AJM, Ambuko J, Belik W, Huang J (2014) Food losses and waste in the context of sustainable food systems (No. 8). CFS Committee on World Food Security HLPE 30. Training and Research Support Centre (TARSC) and Civic Forum on Housing (CFH) (2010) Assessment of solid waste management in three local authority areas of Zimbabwe. Report of a community based assessment: discussion paper TARSC Harare 31. Tsiko RG, Togarepi S (2012) A situational analysis of waste management in Harare, Zimbabwe. J Am Sci 8(4):692–706 UN 2017. New Urban Agenda. https://uploads.habitat3.org/hb3/NUAEnglish.pdf [accessed on 16/12/2020] 32. UN-HABITAT (2020) UN-Habitat COVID-19 response plan. UN-Habitat. https://unhabitat. org/sites/default/files/2020/04/final_un-habitat_COVID-19_response_plan.pdf. Accessed 16 Dec 2020 33. UN-HABITAT (2020) UN-HABITAT COVID-19 policy and programme framework. https:// unhabitat.org/sites/default/files/2020/04/covid19_policy_and_programmatic_framework_ eng-02.pdf. Accessed 17 Dec 2020 34. UN (2017) New urban agenda. https://uploads.habitat3.org/hb3/NUA-English.pdf. Accessed 16 Dec 2020

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Food Availability, Preferences and Consumption in Zimbabwean Urban Spaces Marcyline Chivenge and Innocent Chirisa

Abstract Food availability, preferences and consumption are critical factors of food insecurity. The chapter unfolds food preferences availability and consumption in Zimbabwe with particular reference to Harare, Bulawayo and Bindura. Through extensive literature review and document analysis it is evident that there is food distribution and accessibility problems that need to be addressed. Expanding employment opportunities, thereby enhancing households’ sources of incomes can be the solution. Food insecurity is well understood concerning issues, such as social protection, sources of income, rural and urban development, changing household structures, health and access to land, water and inputs, retail markets, or education and nutritional knowledge. Household food security in Zimbabwe has declined due to a drastic reduction in food and agricultural production following erratic rainfall, a declining industrial economy and the gross lack of key farming inputs. Food availability is declining thus affecting preferences and consumption. Policies addressing food availability that affects preferences and consumption should be spatially blind and universal in application targeting the poorest communities especially in urban areas that are often neglected. Keywords Value chain · Food distribution · Taste and preferences · Adequacy · Sovereignty

1 Introduction Food security is defined in terms of three concepts that is availability, access and utilisation [1]. It is reported that there is currently enough food produced worldwide M. Chivenge Department of Architecture & Real Estate, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe I. Chirisa (B) Department of Demography Settlement and Development, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe Department of Urban & Regional Planning, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 P. Toriro and I. Chirisa (eds.), Environmental Resilience, Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0305-1_7

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to provide everyone with adequate calories [14]. Therefore, globally speaking, availability is not the core of the global food crisis. The concept of access with respect to food security refers to what food the household can acquire. This refers both to what kinds of food are available and whether or not the household can afford them. Food security utilisation refers to how a single household uses the best options for food that it has access to and evaluate whether the household is healthy enough to absorb the nutrients from what they eat and drink [39, 47]. Household food security is the capability of a household to guarantee all its members continued access to adequate quantity and quality of food [17]. Food insecurity is dominant in Zimbabwe, in urban areas in Africa and many developing countries. Traditionally food has been perceived to be plentiful and diverse in the urban areas than the rural areas. However, it is far from being homogeneously available. Food security accounts for the consumption levels of all members of a household’s population [38]. In Zimbabwe, there is noteworthy disparity between households in rural and in urban areas, in terms of food access [32]. Most rural households produce their own food for household consumption and sell the surplus. During shocks, such as droughts, they are assisted by government interventions and food aid from nongovernmental organisations [40]. In contrast, urban households rely on small-scale food production, regular buying of food and livelihood diversification to construct a living. Access to adequate food at a household level is dependent on how food markets and distribution systems function and not merely on total agro-food output [19]. Food intake patterns begin to be shaped at the earliest points in life [20]. Early exposures and experiences are critical for the acceptance of some foods. Hence, the major determinant of food preferences is what individuals had at the earlier stages in life. Laska et al. [22] notes that in low-income communities may be compromised by a lack of available healthy foods. A growing body of research has documented widespread disparities in food availability across the urban areas. Numerous studies have shown that the number and type of food stores available in a locality also determine food intake. Westlake [50] notes that despite much interest in the concept of ‘food deserts’, there has been little systematic empirical research documenting the location of food stores and geographical variations in the price and availability of healthy foods.

2 Literature Review Msuya et al. [30] investigated the availability, preference and consumption of indigenous forest foods in Uluguru North (UNM) and West Usambara Mountains (WUM) of Tanzania. According to Mela [28] under many conditions, food choice and food availability are mutually reinforcing. Thus, food aversion learning is a potent phenomenon that may account for many apparently idiosyncratic and strong dislikes for the ‘taste’ of particular foods. Advertising exposure may lead to consumers’ preferences and consumption of food [7]. Higher income earners spend more on food

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and have a tendency to purchase more expensive branded foods and beverages than lower-income earners, resulting in a higher food availability in these areas. Regmi and Gehlhar [36] notes that per capita availability of meat and fruits and vegetables in low-income countries remains far below those in high-income countries. Vabø and Hansen [49] are of the view that the foods that are familiar to a certain household or locality is closely linked to that foods are available to them. This might vary throughout the world and therefore, cause differing preferences. Pricing of food affects consumption and preference by households [10]. According to Tam et al. [41] university students in his study recommended that pricing changes to increase purchasing capacity and availability of an increased variety of foods on campus. Although taste, cost and convenience are the major drivers for food purchase, there was significant interest in the cost of food. At an older age tertiary institution are a great opportunity to influence eating behaviours. Student food purchasing habits are most influenced by taste, value, convenience and cost. Commonly suggested improvements included lowering food costs and increasing variety. Thus, in these areas the food consumption and availability largely depend on preferences of tertiary education students. Food availability can be met through domestic production; with cereals and above all maize, providing the bulk of staple food [13]. As a result of the decrease in annual rainfall, there has been a reduction in food produced by subsistence and commercial farmers. Harvest varies considerably, largely in tune with the weather. Food aid shipments have aided the availability of food especially to the low-income earners with the bulk of aid coming from the USA. Hence, the availability of food for use also relies on government interventions especially during periods of food crisis. While much of the prior literature has focused on access to supermarkets and its potential influence on dietary intake [6]. Access to urban small food stores and their in-store availability of foods may also play a role in affecting diet, in particular vegetables. Distance to food stores determines food consumption and availability. Poverty is a key determinant of access to food and there is a significant difference by location. High density residential areas are more likely to be poor than low density households; and poverty rates are higher in the marginal lands. Since the mid-1990s, urban poverty has increased significantly: the urban vulnerability assessment carried out in October 2003 estimated that 51% of urban dwellers were very poor and further 21% were poor [52]. The urban population has been hit hard by inflation and loss of jobs, all of which have affected their ability to obtain food. The poor cope partially by being prepared to restrict consumption by reducing food reducing meal frequencies and portion sizes, switching to the cheapest possible foods and consumption of other goods and services. Similarly, they often earn income by taking on arduous work that is low paid. But such measures offer survival, rather than the means to escape poverty [4].

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3 Emerging Issues in Urban Zimbabwe In Zimbabwe, about 75% of the country’s population lives below the national poverty line. Zimbabwe is ranked 172 out of 186 countries on the UN Human Development Index [46]. This shows how widespread poverty is in the country, notably in rural areas and especially in the aftermath of Zimbabwe’s macroeconomic decline and hyperinflation between 2006 and 2008 [44]. Zimbabweans spend significant shares of their incomes on maize and food overall, leaving less funds for costs, such as housing, transport, health and education. Addressing food distribution and accessibility problems is essential. In urban areas it is crucial to expand formal employment opportunities, thereby enhancing households’ sources of incomes. Social protection, sources of income, rural and urban development, changing household structures, health and access to land, water and inputs, retail markets or education and nutritional knowledge all concern household food security [34]. In order to improve food availability and accessibility, multiple factors that influence access to food should be identified so as to formulate appropriate policies to improve food access. Household food security in Zimbabwe has declined due to a drastic reduction in food and agricultural production following erratic rainfall, a declining industrial economy and the gross lack of key farming inputs [51]. Food security status among the households differs due to variation in households’ available resources. The Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee [56] asserts that the 2013/2014 consumption year was projected to see 2.2 million people food insecure by the peak of the hunger period in March 2014. Mudimu [31] state that, in Zimbabwe, food unavailability has only been a household level concern among the poor and those without enough land to farm. However, food shortages at both national and household level have increased over the past two decades and the country has had to rely on food aid and commercial grain imports to meet its requirements. As a result of increase in food prices and inflation, 70% of the population was living below the poverty datum line [54]. The plight of the poor is worsened by a substantial shortfall in maize production because of erratic rains. The majority have to survive on food aid from external donors. Poverty in urban areas is escalating because of the high rate of unemployment [34]. Zimbabwe is classified as a lowincome country with a diversified economy, whose main industrial sectors include mining and agriculture. Although Zimbabwe was Africa’s second most industrialised economy in the early 1990s, the majority of its population has always been agrobased. The decline of manufacturing and other industrial activities has contributed to an increase in the number of households that are dependent on agriculture for their survival. Urban agriculture has proved to be the solution for the urban poor. Malnutrition continues to be a chronic problem in Zimbabwe. Maize still accounts for half of national caloric intake and this ‘mono-diet’ contributes to recent national measurements of undernourishment from 30 to 39% of the total population [9]. Malnutrition can be due to factors, such as insufficient caloric intake, inadequate diversification of food production and consumption (with maize dependence), poor

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care/feeding practices, a high disease burden (especially HIV & AIDS), a lack of potable water and improper hygiene. Malnutrition is evident in high density residential suburbs and informal settlements. Maize is the staple for Zimbabwean households and accounts for roughly half of the average caloric intake for Zimbabweans. Zimbabweans prepare and consume maize mostly as porridge, prepared either hard or soft, called sadza. Wheat is also consumed, but in smaller quantities than maize (wheat accounts for roughly 10% of national caloric intake) and typically more in urban areas in the form of bread [48]. The prevalence of malnutrition is still a significant challenge in Zimbabwe. The prevalence of starvation is the traditional FAO hunger indicator. According to FAO [13], the average person in Zimbabwe consumes 2,219 kcal per person per day. Roughly half of the calories come from maize, 11.5% come from wheat, 9% come from sugar, 5% come from sorghum, roots and tubers and 3% comes from soy oil. For overall caloric intake, the food crop component is 69% and the animal foods component is 9%. Caloric consumption has remained fairly constant over the past two decades in Zimbabwe, with a minor increase during that time period. In some parts, households would benefit from increased consumption of fruits, vegetables and nutrient-dense animal source foods, where they are available and accessible.

4 Case Studies According to the 2012 Census, Harare has a total population of 2,123,132. Food security in Harare improved in 2012 relative to 2008. Harare was in an extremely bad situation and by 2012 it had returned to a rate of food insecurity close to the regional norm for low-income neighbourhoods. The stabilization of the formal economy by 2012 shaped household food access in some key ways: more households received income from wage work and supermarkets and small retail outlets were much more important food sources than they were in 2008 (although alternative food sources remained important). Most households continued to rely on a diverse set of livelihood strategies and food security strategies even under these improved economic conditions, drawing on non-monetary informal food sources, such as rural remittances and urban agriculture in consistently high numbers [43]. Food price increases were less of a problem in 2012 than in 2008, but they continued to impede many households from accessing food on a regular basis. To the least poor households’ vulnerability continues to exist for households experiencing a range of deprivations. Food security status in Harare is inextricably linked to other dimensions of poverty and that even within low-income neighbourhoods there is a wide differentiation in poverty rates and food security status among households. Food insecurity remains endemic among the poorest segments of the urban population. Households in low-income areas have relied on urban agriculture for some basic food requirements. Benefits of urban agriculture include food security and poverty reduction.

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The total population of the Bulawayo Province was 653,337 [55]. This owing to closure and scaling down of industries in Bulawayo, most households have been exposed to extreme poverty. Poor households are dependent on informal trade as their source of income. Food insecurity has significantly increased countrywide with Matabeleland North and Matabeleland South provinces hit hardest [35]. According to the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZimVac) lean season monitoring report for January 2019, food insecurity prevalence increased in the country. In Harare it increased from 46 to 52%, Chitungwiza from 33 to 35% while in Bulawayo it increased from 28 to 33% [57]. The prevalence of crop pests and livestock diseases remains a threat to household food security. Cash shortages have continued to have a negative impact on livelihoods in urban areas that has contributed to distorted prices of goods and services. It is imperative for the Government to initiate and strengthen programmes for the identification and treatment of severe and moderate malnutrition to maintain rates below global thresholds. According to ZimStats [55], Bindura urban area has a population of 43,675. Moyo [29] stresses that, although urban households still live in predominantly cash-driven, exchange entitlement-based economies, food transfers from rural areas give them an additional option for accessing food outside urban food market channels. The majority of households are faced with escalating costs of food. Besides food from their own farms, most urban households rely on other sources of livelihood, such as sales of food and cash crops, vegetable growing, casual labour, remittances and petty trade [34]. Significant households are food insecure and attain low dietary diversity.

5 Lessons Learnt Food insecurity in Zimbabwe has typically been seen as a rural issue, but households in urban and peri-urban regions represent an increasingly significant share of the food deficiency. Zimbabwe’s population is relatively migratory with unsettled land tenure issues and the need to involve in livelihood activities in the informal economy [8]. Therefore, many heads of household may move from a rural, peri-urban or urban environment depending on the time of the calendar year and those considered food insecure can make up noteworthy and increasing proportions of people living in the urban environments [42]. It is a challenge to perfectly sum and locate those populations considered food insecure. Mango et al. [23] noted that, according to the World Food Programme, food availability in the urban context is determined food aces, food supplies to markets, purchasing power and access to market and food utilisation, health and morbidity status. Food security is no longer realised merely as a failure of agriculture to produce adequate food at the national level, but a failure of livelihoods to guarantee access to sufficient food at the household level [11]. Factors used to explain the differences in levels of food availability and consumption between households include income, household land holdings, employment status, household productive asset endowments and household composition. Economic status is a large factor in food security,

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however in poor countries it may not be the only determinant of food preferences [21]. Households with consistent income have more food available to them hence, better preferences. The availability of food for consumption by households has to be determined by other factors, such as household composition, educational level and livelihood diversification. Access to employment opportunities help to diversify and increase the amount of income at household level. The instability in access to employment opportunities determines food preferences of urban households. Family size is identified as one of the important demographic factors that affect household food insecurity status. Households with large family sizes have a higher chance of being food insecure than those with smaller ones [26]. The linkage between household size and household survival strategies is quite complex. For example, urban households may postpone having children or send existing household members to rural areas, thus reducing or limiting the size of the household. Alternatively, households may retain or incorporate additional members to increase income, thus increasing the household size [5]. Household size is significant for households that are food insecure, compared to food secure households [25]. Access to credit facilities determines household food security, because it gives the household an opportunity to be involved in income-generating activities, that can increase their financial capacity and purchasing power, to escape the risk of food insecurity. Moreover, it helps to smooth consumption when households face a temporary food problem. Factors that hinder access to credit include lack of education, collateral, good harvest, nepotism and an unduly long process. Gebre [18] opines that the age of a household head affects food security status, where households headed by older people have higher chances of being food insecure. This is mainly because, the older household heads are, the less likely it is for the household to be productive and the more likely such households are to depend on remittances and gifts. Older household heads, rather than having their own income and production, have a higher probability of having a large family. Education level of the household head affects HFS. Literate household heads are less likely to be food insecure than illiterate household heads [34]. A possible explanation is that an educated household head largely contributes to working efficiency, competency, diversification of income, adoption of technologies and becoming visionary in creating a conducive environment to educate dependants, with the long-term target of ensuring better living condition than illiterate ones [18]. An educated household head plays a significant role in shaping household members. Gebre [18] stresses that being literate reduces the chances of households becoming food insecure.

6 Discussion Tawodzera [42] explained that in general there is the realisation that poverty, as conceived by the poor themselves, is not just a question of low-income, but includes other dimensions, such as bad health, illiteracy and lack of social services, and a state of vulnerability and feeling of powerlessness. In trying to understand urban

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food insecurity, a livelihoods approach is valuable [42]. Such a method aims to improve understanding of how people use the resources at their disposal to construct a livelihood. A livelihood comprises of the capabilities, assets (including material and social resources) and activities required for a means of living. A livelihood is sustainable when it can survive with and recover from, stresses and shocks. It is able to maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets, while not undermining the natural resource base [37]. Natural resources and common property resources, such as rivers, land and forests are generally less significant assets for urban poor residents, some natural resources, like land, are used in urban settings for livelihoods activities. The Fast-Track Land Resettlement Programme (FTLRP) has so far played an important part in addressing food insecurity and poverty reduction among urban poor and low-income working-class groups in Zimbabwe [45]. Farrington et al. [15] points out that, natural resources are generally less used in the livelihood strategies of the urban poor, as they tend to be less available, especially in large urban centres. However, they should not be counted out, especially in peri-urban areas, where traditionally rural communities are being progressively absorbed into the urban fabric and are dependent on agricultural and non-agricultural activities. They are not only directly producing food for household consumption, but some are partly producing for informal commercial purposes. In most cases, access to productive resources including; land, water, seeds, livestock and trees, contributed to yield and income increases; that, in turn, led to improved food security and nutrition levels [12]. The persistent recurrence of poverty, loss of employment and changes in the economy in Zimbabwe; has forced some urban people to rely on resources that are close to rural areas for survival. A key asset for the urban and the rural poor is social capital. Meikle et al. [27] explains that social capital refers to features of social organisation, such as trust, norms and networks, that can improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinating actions. Farrington et al. [15] argues that strong social capital can help communities in mobilising to make demands for services and rights to the state. And local social relations, social capital may include the wider networks of social relations between the poor and the non-poor, including systems of patronage. However, social capital is a valuable and critical resource for poor urban households, especially during times of crisis and socio-economic change [15]. Households in poor communities often diversify their livelihood and incomegenerating strategies so as to deal with food shortages [3]. The home gardening of vegetables has become one of the agro-based safety nets against food shortages and nutritional needs for urban dwellers in Zimbabwe [24]. One of the most common coping strategies in times of food insecurity in southern Africa lay in reducing food consumption. In badly affected parts of Zimbabwe, households have sought to cope with the situation by initially eating smaller portions. As the scarcity of food supplies worsened, families intensified their efforts at coping by skipping a meal during the day [53], noted that other common household strategies include short term dietary changes and reducing or rationing consumption, and maternal buffering. Reducing the number of meals per day has been the main strategy adopted over the years by households. The reduction or skipping of some meals has a negative impact on the

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health of some of the most vulnerable members of the household, such as the sick, the elderly and children under five years of age due to poor diet. Reducing household size through postponing having children or sending existing household members to rural areas to reduce expenditure, thus reducing or limiting household size [2]. Conversely, households may retain or incorporate additional members to increase income, thus increasing household size. Mechanisms that households employ in response to short term food insufficiency can tell a story about that household’s capacity to withstand shocks and risks that trigger food shortages [34]. The capacity of households to withstand shocks or manage risks is dependent on the magnitude and severity of the risk, and on the households’ assets, including social capital. Meikle et al. [27] stated that many poor urban households are opportunistic, diversifying their sources of income and drawing, where possible, on a portfolio of activities, such as formal waged employment, informal trading and service activities. People who live in areas with a high risk of food shortages will eventually develop a self-insurance coping strategy, to minimise risk to their household food security and livelihoods. Some of the households may resort to the sale of assets or migrating to regions where they can easily find employment, to feed the family. The resilience of Zimbabweans is being tested as the country is facing high food costs, citizens of Zimbabwe are struggling to stay afloat [33]. Particularly, the vulnerable and the urban poor. A new effort should be placed to explore options to improve diets and food choices in economically struggling urban areas. Strategies on diversifying human diets under extreme financial constraints should be developed. Thus, with the projected population in cities providing urban populations with safe, nutritious foods is a growing burden for many city administrations. In Zimbabwe, urban poverty has huge negative impacts on nutrition: one-third of all children under the age of five suffer moderate or severe stunting; half of these children live in urban areas [16]. Zimbabwean cities have been crippled by unemployment and Zimbabweans emigrate in search of greater prosperity elsewhere. To date the response to food crises has generally focused on rural communities, leaving underprivileged populations in cities to fend for themselves. A deep understanding of people’s food choices is essential but often lacking. Zimbabwean citizens primarily survive on maize. It is not clear whether they are not willing to seek alternatives. Unlike in rural areas, in the city everything requires money, including accommodation, food, water and electricity, that people in rural areas usually do not have to pay for. In addition, there is limited farming space for everyone. Finding healthier foods is becoming increasingly difficult. The Sustainable Development Goals envisage an end to extreme poverty for all. For this goal to be reached, there is an urgent need for massive compelling sensitization about urban malnutrition. In low-income township, where malnutrition is rampant, economic development is downward and unequal. Situations like these require a dramatic change to influence dietary behaviour, beyond aid-oriented nutrition approaches. Urban spaces provide opportunities for more radical interventions. There is need to get civil society, clinics and health workers and the food industry together to ignite a social movement, with small comprehensible steps, guided by constructive optimism, to give birth to a new meaning of food and nutrition. Design

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meals with local preferences for nutritious foods, engage schoolchildren, adolescent girls, young mothers and old people. Food preferences and consumption can be influenced through connecting healthier foods in the city with rural supply chains; small grains and legumes, with higher nutrient densities than maize, can find a space in that. To help vulnerable communities to have a meal, an entry point into dialog and exchange with communities, to discover areas of needs that go beyond providing a meal, but to create a culture of becoming the change by engaging with others is a necessity.

7 Conclusion Food availability is declining thus affecting preferences and consumption. Urbanisation and the nature of urban poverty and the relationship between governance, poverty and the spatial characteristics of cities and towns is an important determinant of food consumption, preferences and availability. A household’s ability to achieve food sufficiency is derived from the household’s human, material and institutional resource base. Food security factors can include demographic factors (high dependency ratio, low educational level of household head, female or child headed households), employment and income factors (unemployment of working age group and single income source), wealth and asset factors (asset poor, lack of diversity in assets, like liquid assets, no savings or inadequate savings), health factors (high incidence of illness and deaths, limited access to health care, inadequate access to clean water, poor sanitation) and environmental factors (high cost of living, high incidence of crime, etc.). Hence, there is a strong linkage between poverty and food insufficiency. Unlike in rural areas where most households derive their food requirements from agricultural production, food availability in urban areas is market dependant as most households depend on purchases for their food and urban agriculture contribution to food security is insignificant. However, strong rural urban linkages can lessen food unavailability in urban populations.

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Food and City Planning Management in Zimbabwe Percy Toriro and Charlotte Muziri

Abstract This chapter examines the link between food and city management in Zimbabwe. The increase in the rate of urbanisation has set up unprecedented challenges for feeding cities with affordable and healthy food. Urban food security and food systems are receiving growing attention at global level both North and South. Although, the issue of food and city planning management is insufficiently covered and is limited in existing literature, there exists very few comprehensive planning books that properly consider food planning and the integration of food systems, some cities and regions have made huge progress over recent years. However, their practices have not been made visible to a wide audience and reflections on their limitations and successes deserve greater attention. The New Urban Agenda (NUA) places specific additional responsibilities for cities to include food in city management. Therefore, this chapter aims to improve the understanding of food and city planning management in Zimbabwe. The chapter illustrates emerging issues by addressing questions, such as: who manages food issues in cities in Zimbabwe? Is it a clear mandate? Is the management structure and skills set in urban councils appropriate and sustainable? What are the management experiences that can be shared from Zimbabwean cities? The findings indicate that over the years there has been a growing recognition of the persistence of food insecurity in urban areas mostly in developing countries, because food production was for a long time considered a rural issue, thus urban agriculture has emerged as a lucrative livelihood strategy used to curb food insecurity in urban areas. Urban planners also have paid little attention to food systems, emphasising ‘traditional’ urban priorities, such as public transportation and decent housing. Keywords Land-use management · Urban planning · Compliance · Resilience · Spatiality

P. Toriro (B) Municipal Development Partnership for Eastern and Southern Africa, Harare, Zimbabwe e-mail: [email protected] C. Muziri Department of Architecture & Real Estate, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 P. Toriro and I. Chirisa (eds.), Environmental Resilience, Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0305-1_8

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1 Introduction Food is viewed as a system, where it is defined as the suite of activities by which food is produced, processed, distributed and consumed and the influences on and outcomes of those actions (World Food Summit 1996) [22, 70, 76]. The chapter further suggests that food systems emerge and change as a result of an extraordinarily complex set of private and public interests, actions and conflicts. Food system activities include food production, processing and packaging of food, distributing and retaining food and consuming food (WFS 1996). The multi-dimensional and multifunctional character of the food system means that it has profound effects on a host of other sectors including public health, social justice, energy, water, land, transport and economic development and these are all sectors in which planners have a considerable interest. Morgan [60], asserts that among the basic essentials for life, such as air, water, shelter and food; planners have traditionally addressed all of them with the conspicuous exception of food. Incorporating food systems in the city planning and management therefore, risks being neglected. Food has been considered a rural activity because there is a tendency to take a productionist approach when considering food matters. Battersby [5], asserts that despite a growing interest in food in cities of both the Global North and Global South, hunger and food security in most urban areas remain largely invisible and therefore, their integration into planning remains overlooked. Since 2008, more than 50% of the world’s population is living in urban areas and this is expected to rise to 66% by 2050, a growth that will especially occur in the developing world 89]. Although urbanisation is clearly a global phenomenon, the global South is undergoing unprecedented urban revolutions, in terms of scale and character, where cities are likely to eat up arable land at a prodigious rate and unprecedented challenges are arising for urban food security [29]. New restrictive measures being imposed globally on citizens to curb the spread of the new coronavirus have resuscitated debates on strategies to ensure food security in an increasingly food insecure world [88]. Food has a unique status in our lives [78]. Rather than being just another ‘industry’, like autos, steel or software, the food sector is unique because we ingest its products [60]. For this reason, the food sector is critically important to human health and well-being and this is why it is intrinsically significant to human functioning rather than merely instrumentally significant [75]. Thus, it is of paramount importance for city planners and managers to incorporate it in the management of cities and also to manage the whole food system so that food security is increased in urban areas. It is therefore, necessary to address urban food security not only as a global issue, but equally as a national and local one, bringing food planning issues of a different nature at each level. It is with this growing concern that cities must incorporate food in city planning and management because, the proportion of people who are food insecure is growing faster in cities than in rural areas and hunger and malnutrition in urban areas are strongly related to the inequitable distribution of available resources [90].

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The primary objective of this chapter is to show how food is incorporated in the city planning management. The chapter examines who is responsible for food issues in cities and whether it is a clear mandate, whether the management structure and skills set in council are appropriate and sustainable.

2 Literature Review This section reviews the literature relating to food and city planning management drawing lessons and insights from different cities around the world. First it highlights on the definition of food and its characterisation and city planning management. Secondly, it focuses on food and city planning management in Zimbabwe and how it incorporates food issues. Thirdly, it discusses the institutional frameworks used to govern and guide food in cities and the need to include it in city planning and management considering its usefulness in shaping the cities. The world is experiencing unprecedented urban growth, according to FAO [26] today, over half of the global population is urban and by 2050 an additional 2.5 billion people are expected to live in urban areas. The world has witnessed unprecedented urban growth and this growth has seeded many of the problems that we wrestle with today: climate change, transnational crime, political instability, terrorism, epidemic disease and congestion. All these challenges have consequences for the feeding of urban dwellers [24, 42]. Due to rapid urbanisation, growth often occurs in an unplanned and unregulated way, often in the absence of any infrastructure and services, giving rise to fragmented areas and ever larger slums [86]. Such uncontrolled urbanisation impairs the efficiency of different aspects of planning including food systems especially, supply and distribution systems [32, 52]. Expanding urban populations demand increased supplies of food and as cities and towns grow, in terms of physical size and population, the existing production systems and cropping patterns in the peri urban areas intensify and the origin of food supplies shifts, with supplies coming from areas further and further afield [27]. Many cities are failing to achieve food security [18]. According to FAO, food security is based on the four pillars namely ‘availability, accessibility, utilisation and stability’ (FAO 2006 in [5]:204). Meanwhile, the demand for food in the cities is growing and requires quantities of food that rural and peri urban areas may not be able to supply. This has led to a growing constituency of scholar and practitioners advocating for mainstreaming of urban agriculture [93, 44, 53, 56]. In such a context, there is need to know how to integrate town planning and food systems so that aspects, such as food production, consumption, supply and distribution are part of the planning. Food plays a central role in sustaining human life and it is embedded within a wide range of municipal and regional policy areas: from land-use planning to infrastructure and transport, environmental conservation, housing and economic development [6]. Food can then be viewed as a vehicle that integrates economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainability, and for addressing justice and health issues at different geographies and scales, including cities [25]. According to the World

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Food Summit (1996), food is viewed as a system, where the ‘food system’ refers a series of activities by which food is produced, processed, distributed and consumed and the influences on and outcomes of those actions. The chapter further suggests that food systems emerge and change as a result of an extraordinarily complex set of private and public interests, actions and conflicts. The multidimensional and multifunctional character of the food system means that it has profound effects on a host of other sectors including public health, social justice, energy, water, land, transport and economic development and these are all sectors in which city managers have an interest [23]. Cities take for granted that everyday food will arrive at restaurants, cafés, shops, supermarkets, markets, schools, etc. enough to meet the health and diverse cultural needs of their inhabitants [78]. However, according to May [54] events, such as the 2007-8 food price hikes have shown the vulnerability of access to food and its connection with riots and national security concerns around the world. To achieve urban food security, all the four pillars, that is, food availability, accessibility, utilisation and stability must be achieved. At the moment they are not being achieved. The number of households suffering from food insecurity is increasing dramatically around the globe and is accompanied by poor diet-related conditions, such as malnutrition obesity and diabetes [81]. These problems have enormous impacts on people’s well-being and, by extension, in the overall socio-economic situation and environmental resources. Although city managers do not always mainstream it, food, the food system and cities have always been connected, from the adoption of place-based agriculture [69], through the different processes of the industrial and agricultural revolutions [6, 3]. The revised place-based design concepts, such as the Garden City Movement of Ebenezer Howard also is a testimony to this connection [19]. According to Steel [78] food directly impacted on the location, economic functions, the design and how city and national politics play out. However, more recently, the relationships between cities and food have become increasingly disconnected. As food has increasingly become an instrument of trade, traded not as a public good [54] but as a commodity [33], the focus on food has shifted from a mandate, even if indirect, of city government, to a function of a liberalised market. This relationship, between urban food, city officials and planners and the state, is becoming increasingly vague. Some scholars posit that some cities have begun reclaiming their place as actors in urban food systems due to the increased scale of urban food insecurity [2, 4]. Many city officials consider food as outside the day to day responsibilities of city management, mainly because most food was traditionally produced outside the city boundaries [71]. However, in recent years, there has been a shift in the way people view food systems. Fluctuating prices for basic foodstuffs and growing concerns about food security and sustainability have uncovered the systemic and evolutionary nature of the global food crisis [17]. In this context, there is a growing recognition of the emerging role of cities in the development of sustainable food systems. Food production and consumption are not seen as two separate processes anymore, but as components of an integrated and connected whole.

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There are many cities in developing and developed countries that are already engaging in transformative governance systems that embrace food security in their planning blueprints. There is the new concept that is in the more sustainable cities of the global north, where urban designers are re-imagining the city ‘as a farm’ [91]. This shows that cities are becoming increasingly involved in food related work. For a growing number of cities, the ambition seems to be to develop holistic strategies that encompass and integrate all the areas of work related to food, social economy and integration, environment and health. De Cunto et al. [20]. Such a holistic and integrated approach enables them to tackle the complex issues that cities must face today (growing population, finite resources and space) and also to adopt a long-term policy approach that remains applicable in an ever-changing political landscape. An indication of this renewed interest is the emergence of EU-funded projects, that involve local authorities and focus on urban food strategies and actions. For instance, in cities, like Milan, there is the “Milan Urban Food Policy Pact” (MUFPP), led by the city and initiated within the framework of the Food Smart Cities for Development project that aims at to create a network of Food Smart Cities and to guide European local authorities and civil society organisations in drafting, developing and implementing local food-related policies [10]. Urban, city or town planning is the discipline of land use planning that deals with the physical, social and economic development of metropolitan regions, municipalities and neighbourhoods. Due to its strategic nature, it forms part of city management. Land use planning is the term used for a branch of public policy that encompasses various disciplines that seek to order and regulate the use of land in an efficient way [12]. Urban planners shape patterns of land use and the built environment in and around cities to solve and prevent challenges of urbanisation, including providing shelter, food and other basic needs of life, protecting and conserving the natural environment and assuring equitable and efficient distribution of community resources, including land [72]. As a profession, urban planning lays claim to being comprehensive in scope, future oriented, public interest driven and of wanting to enhance the liveability of human settlements. It is also distinguished by its focus on numerous functional systems that make up the community, including the study of their characteristics and interconnectedness [28]. Land use, housing, transportation, the environment, the urban economy and recreation, amongst others, are issues that city managers grapple with every day. The food system, however, is notable by its absence from the writing of planning and city management scholars. The system is also absent from city strategies and other plans prepared by planners and from the lecture rooms in which city governance and planning students are taught. As opposed to other commercial or private activities in cities, urban food production has never been addressed properly by legal regulation and planning [21, 74]. The food system is important. From its definition that brings together the chain of activities connecting food production, processing, distribution, consumption and waste management, and the associated regulatory institutions and activities [78], governance of cities cannot ignore it. There are conceptual and practical reasons why planners should devote more attention to the food system, since it is paramount in

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the improvement of human settlements. Including food systems in city management can better serve the needs of the people and bring out the linkages between various aspects, such as physical, natural, housing, transportation, land use and economic empowerment. Planners and city managers create the conditions for wholesome living. This includes adequate quantities of food to be produced and brought to cities at the lowest cost and under the most hygienic conditions possible [73]. Planners also encourage investment to satisfy the growing urban demand for food while minimizing the environmental impact [61]. Planners are responsible for orienting urban policies, programmes and decisions towards more efficient food supply and distribution infrastructure and activities in order to reduce food insecurity among low-income dwellers.

3 Food and City Planning Management in Zimbabwe Zimbabwe was once referred to as a food basket for the southern region, however, in between 2002 to 2008 there was a dramatic transformation from a food surplus to a food deficit country at the household and national levels [81]. This was because, for two decades Zimbabwe suffered a profound political, economic and social malaise [82]. From its status as a net exporter of food in the 1980s and early 1990s, after 2000 it became a net food importer and a major recipient of food aid [43]. In 2008, this became worse as the food situation was dire. Tawodzera et al. [82] asserts that for most of 2008, the market was characterized by constant staple food shortages. This resulted in the collapse of the formal food system and most foodstuffs could only be accessed on the parallel market and this situation was particularly grave in urban areas where households had to purchase most of their food. This was exacerbated by an increase in urban population that, according to the Zimbabwe Population Census 2012, rose to 33% of the country’s population. This meant an increase in demand for food in urban areas. This gave rise to the urban food insecurity that Zimbabwe faced. According to the AFSUN [1] survey, among 462 poor households surveyed in Harare, rates of food poverty were extremely high, almost all were food insecure (96%) and nearly three-quarters (72%) were severely food insecure. Urban food production was accepted early in urban areas as it was an integral part of early spatial planning in Zimbabwe’s urban areas. For instance, Zinyama [94] and City of Harare [15], document that the earliest suburbs south of Harare for low-income white (or non-indigenous) residents were allocated larger horticultural allotments on that they were allowed not only to set up their residential units, but also to grow food for their own consumption and sale. This shows that the city planning was also shaped by the need for food provision to its residents. Also, the facilitation of food production was a means to support poor families’ livelihoods [16, 94]. As urbanisation increased in Zimbabwe’s cities the demand for land increased that meant that undeveloped public spaces that had been available for food production

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were built on and residents therefore, made use of the remaining more marginal and ecologically fragile land for food production. The urban food system in Zimbabwe is mainly guided by the Regional Town and Country Planning [34], the Urban Councils Act [35], the Government of Zimbabwe [36] and statutory instruments. The principal land use planning policy document for any city in Zimbabwe is the master plan that is drafted in terms of the Regional Town and Country Planning Act of 1976: Chapter 29:12 [34]. All Master plans in Zimbabwe are prepared in terms of the Regional Town and Country Planning Act of 1976 and it has policies and strategies that guide development of the city. For instance, the Harare Master plan of 1993 to present and the Bulawayo Master plan of 2000 to 2015 have guided the city planning management and they also have specific provisions that indicate the city’s position on food production [14]. The Master Plan provisions are closely aligned with the wider initiatives and agreements on urban agriculture. Policy (v) of the Harare Master Plan of 1993 states as follows: “Insist on intensive productive use of agricultural land adjacent to/close to developed areas for perishables in order to provide for local consumption and/or export.” Policy (xii) of the Harare Master Plan of 1993 states: “Identify and zone land suitable for residential agriculture allotments” [34]. Thus, Master plans are used as a guiding framework for how city planning management should operate and include the issue of food. According to Toriro [84], although the 1993 Master Plan has clauses on food production, there has not been consistency in ensuring the policy positions are implemented. Tawodzera et al. [83] also suggest that some areas have no areas for local food production as per required by the Master plan, hence the general absence of food production in the local plans indicates a disconnection between planning intention and practice. Whilst the land use policy identified the need for food production, urban planners do not appear to see the need for food production in urban areas. Yet, planners are supposed to lead in giving practical effect to the realisation of the policy position, but they have not. As a result, most plans remain silent about food production [83]. At the national level, Zimbabwe’s Constitution encapsulates the right to food and food security through Sections 15 and 77, mandating the State to encourage people to grow, store and secure adequate food reserves and to take reasonable measures to ensure food security [37]. The government went a step further in 2013 by launching a National Food and Nutrition Security Policy, whose goal is to ensure adequate food and nutrition security in the country [38]. Also, the National Nutrition Strategy (2014–2018), has also been crafted as an implementation framework to operationalise the policy. However, there are policies and their ensuing strategy that focus primarily on food availability, without sufficiently engaging other critical dimensions of food security (food access, utilisation and stability), that are critical to food security in the urban area. Further to this, the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation 39], although having components that focus on food through its Food Security and Nutrition Cluster, envisages the improvement of food security in the country through increased production. Thus, in a national sense, Zimbabwe does not have a policy that is geared to or articulated adequately to cater for the specific food needs of its urban population, let alone the urban poor in areas of urban poverty.

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The constitutional and legal framework for Zimbabwe provides for fairly autonomous urban local authorities with decentralised powers for land use planning, local revenue collection (especially from land rates) and urban management that also includes food in cities [34, 35]. However, as documented in a series of government commissions of inquiry, the central government has increasingly been involved in the running of local councils, for example through the secondment of senior professionals and the allocation and development of land [35]. However, there is no ministry in the government that runs cities and within the cities that deals solely with food. Food in cities is managed by the city council indirectly by different departments. City councils have farms, but their existence is only partly to provide food. For instance, Bulawayo city council has two productive farms within its boundaries namely Aisleby and Good Hope farms [9]. Aisleby Farm covers an area of 1,286 ha and lies to the north of the city and this is where Aisleby Sewerage Works are situated. The treated effluent from the works is used for irrigating the farm pastures, that are divided into a number of paddocks. A successful livestock production project is run by Ingwebu Breweries, that is a commercial wing of the City Council. The farm also has extensive livestock and in 2004 the year opened with 1996 cattle. At the end of December there were 1 813 beef cattle, with 320 births during the year, 84 deaths and 509 cattle sold to abattoirs that year. There is also an experimental sheep project that started in 2004 with 20 sheep. Goodhope Farm adjacent to Aisleby planted 86 hectares of maize, that yielded 257 tonnes or 3 tonnes per ha. These yields were considered low and attributed to imbalances in nutrients as a result of shortages of farming inputs. Some Council Farms are leased out for grazing for example, Remainder of Umganwini, measuring 1,500 ha is leased to one farmer [9]. So, clearly some cities have potential to play a bigger role in the food system, but they do not consider that to be their priority so much of the potential is not fully realised. Cities rather have a stronger focus on governance aspects that seek to stop foodrelated activities. There is evidence that all urban areas in Zimbabwe have units that are responsible for destroying crops if they are on authorised piece of land in order to protect the environment. Mbiba [56] documents this position clearly where even inter-agency teams (composed of officers from different municipal departments, national government and the government Natural Resource Board) would destroy crops. So, whilst every urban area in the country has a unit for development control and enforcement comprising planning officers and municipal police, most of them do not have institutional arrangements for facilitating urban food systems.

4 Food Informality and the Zimbabwe Urban Landscape Over the years there has been a rise in the informal food sector. The informal food economy is not only a critical component of the local food system, but also a key livelihood strategy [49]. The majority of urban residents have access to food through the informal food economy, where bulk breaking and credit facilities increase the

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poor’s access to food. Some scholars have argued that it is not a sector, but rather an economy. Njaya argues that an informal sector in Zimbabwe does not exist instead, there is an informal economy—the whole economy is an informal economy based on unwritten rules, relations, social capital and structures of power [63]. Yet despite this, official government reports state that the informal economy contributes only about 20% of the Gross National Product [40] . The informal food sector comprises of informal supermarkets, informal distribution channels and also informal food production and street vendors of fresh food to name a few.

4.1 Urban Agriculture Urban agriculture is more than just the production of food and it is being recognised in most of the South and in some countries in the North as an integral part of urban food systems. Other components of urban agriculture include: food supplied from rural areas, urban storage and transportation, processing and marketing, distribution and consumption of food in urban areas. [62]. The benefits of urban agriculture mainly relate to the food security of poor urban households as it provides a supplementary source of food, augments household income, creates employment and contributes to improved health and nutrition of the participating households and to improved economies of urban areas [66]. Urban agriculture has been a constant and expanding feature of the urban landscape in since the early 1990s in Zimbabwe. Over the years, urban agriculture has been associated primarily with low-income households with inadequate financial resources and insecure livelihood opportunities [58]. This has been and remains an important source of food for home consumption. According to AFSUN [1], 60% of households engage into urban agriculture as food source and it is said to be a significant means of supplementing the food needs of poor households. Worldwide, most urban agriculture still remains largely unrecognised, unassisted, or discriminated against, if not outlawed or harassed, even in years of food shortage [59]. After independence in 1980, land was set aside for a few co-operatives in the capital city, mostly as a means to gamer political support; however, due to increased food insecurity urban agriculture became de facto government policy [56]. City councils were against this because agriculture was always viewed as a rural activity and a threat to the environment. As pointed out by Mbiba [56], some of this cultivation was seen by authorities as violating environmental regulations, the most important one being a restriction on cultivation within 30 m of stream banks and rivers. Hence, the city authorities would periodically send municipal police to destroy thriving maize crops, some nearing maturity, in residential areas. However, several governments are creating agencies to manage urban agriculture and some governmental and other organisations are actively encouraging the activity [46]. Zimbabwe is no exception, in 2002, there was an agreement by the Urban Councils Association of Zimbabwe (UCAZ) that urban areas in Zimbabwe needed to acknowledge the role of urban agriculture in promoting urban food security and livelihoods that is known as the Nyanga Declaration on Urban and Peri-Urban

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Agriculture [85]. Urban local authorities were to recognize the significance of the contribution of Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture to social development approaches, generation of jobs and income, self-esteem, environmental improvement and urban food security and to add them to their key development goals. In Harare, bylaw enforcement remains among the most stringent observed as official attitudes towards urban agriculture have progressed considerably over the last decade, as shown by Mbiba [55]. However, the slashing of crops on other public land proceeded, until major confrontations prompted a review, resulting in the suspension, of crop slashing in 1992 and ever since. Urban agriculture; however, has its own limitations [31]. Several scholars have cautioned against viewing urban agriculture as a ‘panacea’ to urban food security [30, 41]. There is never enough space for many to meaningfully contribute to food security. The little land available exposes residents to conflicts over the scarce resource and may also cause environmental challenges [80, 86]. Whilst there should be room for planned urban agriculture, it must be acknowledged as a complimentary strategy rather than the main strategy as it is not possible to feed cities only from urban agriculture.

4.2 Street Vendors of Fresh Food As in many parts of the global South, Zimbabwean cities have witnessed an increase in street vendors for fresh food. There are several challenges associated with food vending [68]. These are usually to do with food handling and food hygiene [65, 67]. Usually the food on sale is unprotected and exposed to the sun, rain and pollution. Most food stalls are affected by inadequate waste collection and disposal. Thus, there is poor hygiene in sales areas [64]. In Zimbabwe, similar challenges were identified [63]. There has been some legalisation of the activities of existing street food vendors but the overwhelming number of vendors remain criminalised [87]. On the streets many unlicensed vendors remain due to the inadequacy of official spaces. As is common elsewhere, city managers do not like these unauthorized vendors as they are perceived to make the city ugly [92]. Although the municipality has increased equipment and human resources to monitor street vending, there have been continuous street battles as the vendors fight for survival to sell food for their survival. As this happens, Harare residents also lose out as the vendors are the exclusive suppliers of certain food types [87].

5 Emerging Issues Food is not treated as a system in Zimbabwe’s urban areas. None of the cities takes time to coordinate and integrate the planning and management of all aspects of the food system. As a result, adhoc incoherent efforts address this critical sector.

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As observed by Steel, the availability and reliability of food in different outlets in Zimbabwe’s cities is taken for granted [78]. In addition to the general failure to consider the food system, food security as a concept is not understood. City planners and managers do not realise that food access, availability and market stability should be planned for and constantly managed if there is going to be urban food security. Zimbabwe’s cities are characterised by informal activities that viewed as a threat where private actors set and enforce rules under which other actors in the value chain operate or benefit [51]. The food system in cities is dominated by small, informal players who provide a measure of service and food system access filling the gaps left by the bigger players. The current position, where local authorities and their by-laws continue to exclude and criminalise the informal food economy, is untenable, as it exacerbates poverty and inhibits the smooth functioning of the local food system. Actors emerge in spaces where governance vacuums exist and exercise various modes of power at different scales [47]. For instance, Tawodzera et al. [83] note that in Epworth 39% of people operating in food retail are unlicensed and this creates fertile ground for extortionist tendencies. They are also vulnerable in terms of safety, hygiene among many issues. More recent studies show that up to 90% of food outlets in Epworth are informal meaning the policy and management framework must accommodate these food providers [86]. Both the national legislation and the majority of by-laws do not match the reality of the largely informal food economy that exists in cities and the current approach criminalises and penalises critical components of the food system [83]. The informal food sector has proved to be of importance in increasing and securing food security mainly for the urban poor [63]. What is in the regulations does not match what is on the ground and has lost relevance. The same is true of most master and local plans that are all old and now out of context. Municipalities in Zimbabwe have traditionally had limited engagement with food in a positive way. Cities do not appear to realise that they have official authority in terms of food provisioning. They assume food issues are generally dealt with at higher regional and especially national levels. Yet, food brings a number of local insidious problems that present challenges to residents of municipalities: food poverty, foodrelated diseases, unhealthy diets, unequal access to quality food, city food supply vulnerability and many other challenges. These many problems with their complex interdependencies and rebound effects should urge motivate cities to engage in food policies. Urban planning and city management in modern cities hardly ever takes food issues into consideration even under growing food insecurity. Every city must be pondering how to get the subject of sustainable food onto the city agenda and second how to keep it there. In most urban settlements in Zimbabwe, the Master Plan is a key statutory tool for city management. The law stipulates that a master plan needs to be prepared to guide urban development in the medium term often 10–15 years. The preparation process involves wide consultation and public display of the master plan draft. The master plan assigns land to different uses a public good. But master plans are rather static and slow to assume change for instance the Harare Master plan was approved in 1993 and so expired many years ago but it is still being used to cater for the growing needs

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of food system management and this has led to issues were its efficacy is questioned. Still, there is great potential in the master planning process for integrating urban food systems into its goals and spatial development framework [11]. The emergence of the coronavirus has however impacted significantly on Zimbabwean cities and their perception of informal food suppliers. Some of the common measures to curb the spread of the virus have exposed the fragility and inadequacy of formal food chains. The government has been forced to recognize and accommodate all food suppliers and declare them critical service providers, including informal food suppliers [88].

6 Lessons Learnt Food must be considered as a system and it also considers urban food security. Once such an approach is adopted, there is a good possibility that it can be provided for in the Master Plans city strategies and also in policy declarations. The failure by professionals and policy-makers to adopt a food systems approach and realise their role in urban food security creates a potential challenge in the governance as food security remains at the peripheral discretion of officials whose values may be out of alignment with the lived reality of urban residents. The regulatory framework governing food and city management must be aligned with the goal of achieving urban food security. According to Tawodzera et al. [83], the RTCPA [34] and the Urban Councils Act [35] as the guiding frameworks for regulating the food system in Zimbabwe seems to be inadequate as they do not take into consideration the informal sector, that, is a critical component of the urban food system. The Acts only provide for mono-functionally zoned urban forms, that do not take into account mixed land-use patterns and the growing informal sector [13]. As Machakaire and Tapela [48] point out, although businesses are supposed to be consulted on development and issues relating to their operations in the area, the RTCPA requires that some formal operators be consulted in the planning process [48]. Hence, informal food sector actors are not consulted in by-law development and market area planning. The urban poor, the majority of whom operate in the informal food sector, are therefore, denied the right to shape the governance structures of the area in which they operate. The threat to formal food chains imposed by the coronavirus has taught everyone that all types of food suppliers are important particularly when there are shocks to the food system. There is need to financially include and support small-scale and informal operators in the production processing and marketing of food. Currently there are no loans, subsidies, credit facilities or extension services targeting that group. Extension services for urban agriculture in Harare are not provided, because urban agriculture remains an “ad hoc” activity shrouded in “illegality” and “uncertainty” [55, 50]. The same applies to retailers of food whose status remain clouded and ‘gray’ [87]. The legal and institutional voids that limit support for some aspects of the urban food

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system continue largely to prevail, on account of the lack of prioritisation of urban food by city managers. While the challenges resulting from rapid urbanisation necessitate proper planning and reforms, new approaches are needed that take into consideration the reality on the ground rather than an idealistic vision of a modern city. A transition towards sustainable food systems in cities requires a paradigm shift on attitudes of managers on the role of the informal food sector and how it can be harnessed to complement the formal sector. Successful implementation of policy guidelines depends on coordination and collaboration between local authorities, Non-Governmental Organisations, consumers of food, civic organisations and communities with the involvement of all stakeholders in the planning process to adopt a multi-stakeholder participatory approach when it comes to food in urban areas.

7 Discussion Food is an important aspect in city management and it emerges as a new challenge for that cities appear ill-prepared. It is clear that achieving a sustainable food system goes beyond urban agriculture. It also goes beyond the city boundaries since some streams through that food comes into the city transcends boundaries. Finding and making space for food is therefore, a very pertinent issue for cities not just in terms of physical space for food entrepreneurship and self-production, but in terms of a widened understanding of the public authorities’ role and embedding that within its administrative structure and culture. An opportunity now exists for urban areas to build on the momentum of recent international initiatives to integrate all critical players in the food system at the local level. Thus, the local authority should engage with urban spaces as multi-functional and multi-layered and supports inclusive participation by a range of stakeholders [45, 63]. The necessity of integrating production-based food programmes to the whole food system and specifically food access programmes is more than urgent. The local planning authority must look at the food system holistically and create an environment that enables a healthy and sustainable food system to flourish. Through solutions that encompass a range of interventions research, infrastructure and skills investment, including cultural activities. These interventions help to develop new values and principles within the city culture and within the policies and strategies of the municipality, other stakeholder organisations and businesses. At the core is a new partnership approach to food system reform, between the municipality and other stakeholders. Different stakeholders play important roles every day in shaping the current food system and transforming it. In order to provoke the necessary changes in the food system, there is need to engage with these policy and public actors, businesses and civil society organisations from the beginning of the process. Consequently, institutional responses to urban food provisioning that have varied from extremely

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prohibitive measures to supportive programmes must be consistently facilitatory. The nature of the response currently depends very much on the personalities holding various positions in the city council and the city mayor in particular. A predictable and progressive approach to food system regulation brings sustainability.

8 Conclusion This chapter examined the link between food and city management in Zimbabwe with reference to Zimbabwean cites. Food security is a growing concern of cities globally due to the rise in urban food insecurity particularly in the global South. Among other considerations, food security addresses the risks of not having access to needed quantities and quality of food [7]. The study revealed that, current trends regarding urban food insecurity in municipalities reveal that food is not considered as a priority area by most city managers. There is no clear mandate for food system planning. The food system is therefore, on autopilot and is managing itself or being managed indirectly. There is also a weak understanding of the food system with the practice of only considering components of the aspect in a disjointed manner. As a result, there is no comprehensive planning for and management of the urban food system. Food is also not understood in the broader context of food security hence, authorities fail to link food access availability and sustainability of markets with their actions. The coronavirus has forced planning authorities to consider the importance of urban food systems. Despite food being a basic human need, urban food security issues have been low or not on the agenda of municipal policy-makers and planners. Placing food on the agenda and integrating it into urban management, should be done by giving attention to urban food systems. It is therefore, recommended that municipalities should make urban food security a policy issue and develop plans to strengthen food systems in urban areas. Perhaps the coronavirus has come as a wake up call to reconsider the real importance of urban food systems to the sustainability of cities.

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35. Government of Zimbabwe (1996) The Urban Councils Act [Chapter 29:15]. Government Printers, Harare 36. Government of Zimbabwe (1996) Public Health Act [Chapter 15:09]. Government Printers, Harare 37. Government of Zimbabwe (GOZ) (2013) Constitution of Zimbabwe. Government Printers, Harare 38. Government of Zimbabwe (GOZ) (2013) Zimbabwe agenda for sustainable development (Zim Asset). Government Printers, Harare 39. Government of Zimbabwe (GOZ) (2013b) The food and nutrition security policy for Zimbabwe: promoting food and nutrition security in Zimbabwe in the context of economic 40. Government of Zimbabwe (GOZ) (2016) Zimbabwe statistical report. Government Printers, Harare 41. Haysom G, Battersby J (2016) Why urban agriculture isn’t a panacea for Africa’s food crisis. The Conversation, April 15, Available at: www.theconversation.com. Accessed 08 Jan 2020 42. Holt-Gimenez E, Patel R (2009) Food rebellions! Crisis and the hunger for justice. UCT Press, Cape Town 43. Kinsey BH (2009) Multiple realities: an assessment of the impact of a generation of land redistribution on food security and livelihoods in Zimbabwe. In annual meeting of the African Studies Association, New Orleans, LA, November (pp 19–22) 44. Koc M, MacRae R, Mougeot L, Welsh J (1999) Food security is a global concern, in for hunger proof cities: sustainable urban food systems. IDRC, Ottawa 45. Kusakabe K (2006) Policy issues on street vending: an overview of studies in Thailand, Cambodia and Mongolia. ILO, Bangkok 46. Lee-Smith D, Memon PA (1994) Urban agriculture in Kenya. Cities feeding people: an examination of urban agriculture in East Africa. P. A. Memon et al. International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, pp 67–84 47. Lindell I (2008) The multiple sites of urban governance: insights from an African city. Urban Studies 45(9):1879–1901 48. Machakaire DG, Tapela TN (2016) Urban development planning practices and responses to rapid urbanisation in Harare: a case of dirty lenses, blunt frameworks/instruments or both? SACSC Conference Working Paper. SACSC, Johannesburg 49. Manjengwa J, Feresu S, Chimhowu A (2012) Understanding poverty, promoting wellbeing and sustainable development: a sample survey of 16 districts of Zimbabwe. Sable Press, Harare 50. Masoka M (1997) The potential role of cultivators in open space cultivation reform in Harare. Unpublished MA dissertation, Department of Geography, University of Zimbabwe, Harare 51. Matondi PB, Chikulo S (2012) Governance over fruit and fresh vegetables in zimbabwe: market linkages and value chain study. Ruzivo Trust, Harare 52. Matovu G (2000) Upgrading urban low-income settlements in africa: constraints, potentials and policy options. Paper prepared for the Regional Roundtable on Upgrading Low-Income Settlements, Johannesburg, 3–5 Oct 53. Maxwell D (1999) The political economy of urban food security in Sub-Saharan Africa. World Dev 27(11):1939–1953 54. May J (2017) Food security and nutrition: impure, complex and wicked? Food security Cape Town, South Africa; University of the Western Cape: Cape Town, South Africa, p 10 55. Mbiba B (1994) Institutional responses to uncontrolled urban cultivation in Harare: prohibitive or accommodative. Environ Urban 6(1):188–202 56. Mbiba B (1995) Urban agriculture in Zimbabwe: implications for urban management and poverty. Ashgate Publishing Limited, Avebury 57. Misselhorn A, Aggarwal P, Ericksen P, Gregory P, Horn-Phathanothai L, Ingram J, Wiebe K (2012) A vision for attaining food security. Curr Opin in Environ Sustain 4(1):7–17 58. Mlozi MRS (1994) Inequitable agricultural extension services in the urban context: the case of Tanzania. In: Stromquist NP (ed) Education in urban areas: cross-national dimensions. Praeger, Westport, USA and London, UK, pp 105–128

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59. Morgan KJ, Sonnino R (2010) The urban foodscape: world cities and the new food equation. Camb J Reg Econ Soc 3:209–224 60. Morgan K (2009) Feeding the city: the challenge of urban food planning. Int Plan Stud 61. Mougeot LJ (ed) (2010) Agropolis: the social, political and environmental dimensions of urban agriculture. IDRC, Ottawa 62. Mougeot JA (1994) Urban food production: evolution, official support and significance. International Development Research Centre 63. Njaya T (2015) Informal Sector, Panacea to the High Unemployment in Zimbabwe? Case of informal sector enterprises of Harare Metropolitan. Int J Res Human Soc Stud 2(2):97–106 64. Nurudeen AA, Lawal AO, Ajayi SA (2014) A survey of hygiene and sanitary practices of street food vendors in the Central State of Northern Nigeria. J Public Health Epidemiol 6(5):174–181 65. Okojie PW, Isah EC (2014) Sanitary conditions of food vending sites and food handling practices of street food vendors in Benin City, Nigeria: implication for food hygiene and safety. J Environ Public Health 2014:1–6 66. Okpala DCI (2002) Urbanisation, poverty and urban food security: a contribution from UNHabitat. Urban Agriculture Magazine, Special Issue for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg 67. Omemu AM, Aderoju ST (2008) Food safety knowledge and practices of street food vendors in the city of Abeokuta, Nigeria. Food control 19(4):396–402 68. Owusu F (2007) Conceptualizing livelihood strategies in African cities: planning and development implications of multiple livelihood strategies. J Planning Educ Res 26(4):450–465 69. Pacione M (2009) Urban geography: a global perspective, 3rd edn, Policy Research Institute, Routledge, New York, NY, USA 70. Pothukuchi K (2009) Community and regional food planning: building institutional support in the United States. Int Planning Stud 14(4):349–367 71. Pothukuchi K, Kaufman JL (1999) Placing the food system on the urban agenda: the role of municipal institutions in food systems planning. Agric Human Values 16: 213–224) 72. Quon S (1999) Planning for urban agriculture: a review of tools and strategies for urban planners. IDRC CFP Report Series, Report 28. RUAF 73. Redwood M (ed) (2012) Agriculture in urban planning: generating livelihoods and food security. Routledge 74. Roberts N (2004) Public deliberation in an age of direct citizen participation. Amer Rev Public Admin 34(4):315–353 75. Sen A (1999) The possibility of social choice. Am Econ Rev 89(3):349–378 76. Smith DW (1998) Urban food systems and the poor in developing countries. Trans Inst Br Geogr 23:207–219 77. Sonnino R (2014) The new geography of food security: exploring the potential of urban food strategies 78. Steel C (2008) Hungry city how food shapes our lives. Chatto and Windus, London, UK 79. Swilling M, Annecke E (2012) Just transitions: explorations of sustainability in an unfair world. Juta, Cape Town, South Africa 80. Taru J, Basure HS (2013) Conflicts, contestation and marginalization in urban agriculture: experiences from Kuwadzana Extension, Harare. Russ J Agric Socio-Econ Sci 18(6):15–26 81. Tawodzera G (2010) Vulnerability and resilience in crisis: urban household food insecurity in Harare, Zimbabwe. PhD Thesis, University of Cape Town 82. Tawodzera G, Zanamwe L, Crush J (2012) The state of food insecurity in Harare, Zimbabwe. Urban Food Security Series, No. 13. Cape Town: AFSUN 83. Tawodzera G, Chigumira E, Mbengo I, Kusangaya S, Manjengwa O, Chidembo D (2019) Characteristics of the Urban Food System in Epworth, Zimbabwe. Consuming Urban Poverty Working Paper No.9, African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town 84. Toriro P (2003) Urban agriculture in Harare. Paper presented at Regional Dissemination Workshop on Access to Land, Harare 85. Toriro P (2009) The impact of the economic meltdown on urban agriculture in Harare. UA Magazine. RUAF, Leusden

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86. Toriro P (2018) Food production processing and retailing through the lens of spatial planning legislation and regulations in Zimbabwe. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Cape Town 87. Toriro P (2019) Resilience under sustained attack from the police: will informality survive? J Urban Syst Innov Resilience Zimbabwe 1(1 and 2) 88. Toriro P (2020) Imagining the new normal under COVID-19 threat. Blog posted on 27 April 2020. africa-citylife.blogspot.com 89. UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) (2008) World Urbanisation Prospects: The 2007 revision, executive summary. United Nations, New York 90. Un-Habitat (2010) Solid waste management in the world’s cities. UN-HABITAT 91. Viljoen A (ed) (2005) Continuous productive urban landscapes: designing urban agriculture for sustainable cities. Architectural Press, London 92. Watson V (2014) African urban fantasies: dreams or nightmares? Environ Urban 26(1):215–231 93. De Zeeuw H, Van Veenhuizen R, Dubbeling M (2011) The role of urban agriculture in building resilient cities in developing countries. J Agric Sci 149(S1):153–163 94. Zinyama L (1993) The evolution of the spatial structure of greater Harare: 1890 to 1990. In: Zinyama LM, Tevera DS, Cumming SD (eds) Harare: The growth and problems of the city. Harare: University of Zimbabwe Publications, pp 7–32

Zimbabwean Urban Planners and Their Role in Urban Food Percy Toriro

Abstract Planners manage the built environment and settlements. The profession envisions the form of urban areas and are responsible for the different land use mixes and the facilities available for residents to use. They also impose rules that determine the uses that are permitted in a locality. At the site level, urban planners determine the buildings that may be built and the extent of development permitted. So, planning determines what use is where and the detail of development. It also directs and dictates what uses are compatible with each other and can be situated next to each other. This is an important lens through which to assess the country’s compliance with provisions of global urban development objectives as set out in the New Urban Agenda (NUA). In Zimbabwe, the urban planning profession is very well-developed and strictly regulated. It borrows heavily from Britain, the former colonial authority. Examining the views of professionals that oversee this profession, the Urban Planners, is therefore, very useful in understanding their actions and in empowering society to meaningfully engage them. This chapter examines the views of Zimbabwean planners on their role in urban food systems. The questions that the chapter sought to answer include: Do Zimbabwean planners think it is part of their mandate to plan for food? What role do they think they should be playing? Who else do they think should be planning and managing food? Do they see themselves as contributing towards the achievement of urban food security? Various research methods were used to collect data including interviews with key informants. A desk survey of the existing planning tools, such as master and local plans, was also undertaken. The author also attended an annual gathering of Zimbabwean urban planners and listened to and analysed discussions during the conference to assess their views. An examination of decisions that have impacted on food systems in the past and the role of planners in these decisions was also used to gain an understanding of the planners. Keywords Regulation · Urban management · Role playing · Compliance · Safety and hygiene · Allocation

P. Toriro (B) Municipal Development Partnership for Eastern and Southern Africa, Harare, Zimbabwe © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 P. Toriro and I. Chirisa (eds.), Environmental Resilience, Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0305-1_9

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1 Introduction Many cities in the Southern African region are grappling with numerous challenges such as poverty, unemployment, poor infrastructure, inadequate housing, water scarcity and food insecurity [4, 5]. At the turn of the century, Zimbabwe’s cities were found to be increasingly becoming food insecure [31]. This was new; as previously, poverty and food insecurity were largely viewed as rural phenomena with most relief work by non-governmental organisations focusing on rural settlements. However, more recent studies undertaken in cities in the southern African region including Harare, show a worsening food insecurity situation [37]. Many urban households were observed to go without eating enough or being unable to afford proper meals or experiencing poor nutrition. Food provisioning is therefore, an increasingly important urban issue. It is important to start by unpacking the two concepts of food security and urban food systems. Food security is a concept that was popularized by the United Nations agency responsible for food issues, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). According to FAO, there are four major determinants of food security. These are ‘availability, accessibility, utilisation and stability’ [9]. All the above four determinants of food security are influenced by planning. Scholars have noted that ‘determinants of food insecurity in urban areas are diverse and complex’ ([38]: 6). The food system comprises different ‘processes and infrastructure involved in feeding a population,production, harvesting, processing, packaging, transporting, marketing, consumption and disposal of food and food-related items’ ([8, 25, 33, 38]: 30). This means that a good understanding of the food system and all constituent factors and different stakeholder roles in urban food security is important if sustainability is to be achieved in urban food systems. Globally food systems are not only poorly understood, but it is documented that they have not been given sufficient attention, ‘…generally, the links between land use planning and food security are poorly understood, inadequately articulated and not readily apparent to most people, let alone to many persons who operate in the separate fields of land use planning and food security’ ([2]: 6). One can therefore, understand the following two views from urban managers captured in different publications on Zimbabwe as an introduction to the documented opinions of Zimbabwean professionals with a responsibility for urban settlements management. The first is a response given by one planner when asked whether one local authority had a role to play in providing urban food: ‘I don’t think the local authority has an obligation to manage food issues, because if you check with the Urban Councils Act under the responsibilities of an urban local planning authority, I do not think such a responsibility is there. My experience tells me that we (planners) are concerned about service delivery, water, roads, sewer, schools, hospitals, recreational areas but not food security. The issue about food …. is basically a rural land use activity’ ([38]: 113).

The second view expressed below is a quote of what an urban planner said to a vendor when evicting them from a site in central Harare:

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‘Shut up and pay attention. This is town. It is for civilised people only…. If you prefer this kind of disorganised life, dzokera kumapfanya kwenyu (go back to your rural homes) …. immediately destroy your filthy, illegal hovels or else. Go home and apply for operating licences and proper working spaces for this kind of business where it is allowed by law’ ([14]: 639).

The planner implies that towns are exclusive, they cannot and should not accommodate all people. If one is ‘disorganised’ or cannot afford a certain standard of life, they cannot belong. They should return to their rural villages where they came from. Otherwise their recourse in the city is to apply for licenses that the authorities expect them to have. This is a typical legalist approach that many professionals take. Whilst this view is not directly about food, it shows the planners’ detachment from contextual socio-economic reality of the people they plan for. Zimbabwe’s principal planning law, the Regional Town and Country Planning Act, states in its preamble that it is: An Act to provide for the planning of regions, districts and local areas with the object of conserving and improving the physical environment and in particular promoting health, safety, order, amenity, convenience and general welfare, and efficiency and economy in the process of development and the improvement of communications [11].

The stated objectives of the law that planners enforce, appear noble and should benefit us all. But, the application of the same law has not always been embraced nor seen to benefit all. Speaking to Urban Planners at the 2006 World Urban Forum in Vancouver, the then Director-General of UN-Habitat Anna Tibaijuka made two important observations: First that urban planning could provide answers to the many emerging urbanisation challenges particularly in the global South. Secondly, she however, expressed doubt that based on current urban planning approaches planning was going to bring those solutions unless they were ‘fundamentally reviewed’ to make them ‘pro-poor and inclusive’ [41]. She was correct in realising the immense power held by planners in city management [13]. Yet, she was also right that based on current attitudes, planners may not help solve the urban poor’s problems. The difficulties faced in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic is partly explained by this contradiction of planners being powerful yet incapable of resolving urban challenges. Feeding cities has become part of a global development agenda as reflected in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the new development agenda for 2030 [43]. This desire must be pursued within the new reality of African cities. ‘Rapid urbanisation and increasing urban poverty are shifting the historical locus of food insecurity from the rural areas to the cities of Africa’ ([5]: 271). With this unpleasant reality of ‘hungry cities’, it is important that planners work to create functional, efficient and sustainable food secure cities [35]. This examination of Zimbabwean planners’ views on urban food is therefore necessary and timely.

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2 Literature Review Planning is said to be practiced in public interest [10]. The notion of what constitutes public interest has however, been challenged by some scholars [14, 46]. Questions, such as that public and whose interests constitute the so-called ‘public good’ have been asked and there has not been universal acceptance of such interests. There is no single ‘public’ and therefore, there cannot be a single public interest in a normal heterogenous society [3]. Rather, in many parts of the world, planners are not known to consider all stakeholders equally and so what they do in public interest has not always been acceptable to different groups within settlements. They have been criticised for prioritising the interests of the well-to-do by serving ‘elite and middle-class interests’ ([32]: 147). Most planners in the global south are also said to be modernist and are influenced by utopian visions of the ‘world class’ cities that bear little or no resemblance to their own contexts [42]. These planners fail to adapt to their localities and end up creating ‘conflicting rationalities’ between the reality of the people they plan for and the ‘modern’ aesthetically beautiful cities they dream of [40]. This results in these global South planners failing to plan inclusive cities as their planned cities ‘sweep’ the poor away by creating settlements that criminalise the activities of the low-income members who are part of the same cities [7, 45]. Other scholars blame planners for imposing themselves as custodians of what is legal and what is illegal and, in the process, painting some spaces white and others ‘grey’ as if they are some gods [47]. The inappropriateness of most planners’ approach to their practice is attributed to the ‘inappropriate’ curriculum used by most planning training institutions in former colonies. Some scholars suggest that there is need to revamp planning training curriculums of most global South universities to reflect their contextual realities [44]. Other scholars also criticize these planners for failing to understand that the form of their cities mirrors their societies and represent a new typology of cities [30]. The planners are therefore, expected to learn from their local contexts and adapt the skills obtained from planning schools to solve local problems in a relevant manner. Sadly, this has not always happened as the planners possess dreams that may be unachievable in their contexts. Planners in Zimbabwe have been documented to subscribe to a vision of cities that are exclusive. Kamete [14] shares study findings in Harare that paint an image of city managers that believe some people do not qualify to be in cities. The city planning officer implementing an order to remove vendors as discussed in the introduction above shows values that considers other city residents as outsiders. That is not an isolated view. In a study of informal ventures including food retail in central Harare, Rogerson found the authorities to be negative against non-formal livelihoods and concluded that the future of small-scale traders in Harare was ‘bleak’ [23, 28]. In a debate on planning standards and the space for informality in urban areas, most

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Zimbabwean planners indicated they were against the ‘ruralisation’ of urban areas.1 To these planners, activities, such as urban agriculture and other informal activities were considered rural hence, their being undertaken in town meant the urban was being turned rural. The majority of planners expressed displeasure at accommodating informal activities that included food markets and growing of food in urban areas of Zimbabwe. With all that criticism for their values and their skewed public interest, planners are further criticised for being a domineering force in development management. Kamete, who has written extensively on informality and how planners treat livelihoods for the poor has been particularly scathing in his criticism. He uses conquest language to describe the behaviour of planners. He mentions that, ‘planning dominates urban spaces by means of subjugation and elimination’ ([14]: 641). In addition to criticism of the power of planners and their monopoly of what is good and bad for the people, he detests their use of conquest and control. The argument is that maybe there is another way of managing urban space that is responsive to people’s needs and is conducted in a more democratic way. The planning profession appears to ‘miss the point’ [14]. In most studies, planners argue that the law prohibits informal food production in urban areas [17, 18, 21, 22, 39], Kutiwa et al. [15], Taru and Basure [36]. They therefore, use and abuse the law to stop many initiatives to produce, process and sell food by the many innovative residents who may want to address the food needs of the population whilst creating their own livelihoods. Planners do this despite the fact that the use of planning law, some of which is considered inappropriate, has also been criticized [19]. The use of the law may not be a bad thing. There must be tools of management if settlements are going to be maintained applying the principles of public health, order, efficiency, equity and other values that planning purports to uphold in ‘public interest’ [11]. Planners have however, been known to choose clauses that are elitist, promote modernist principles and reflect their sympathy with elites as opposed to the poor who constitute the majority [38]. Perhaps the use of the law has largely been selective and leans more on the negative and not progressive. Most planners demonstrate blindness to food matters in their day to day practice. Such planners do not think planning has anything to do with food and would rather have food handled by some ‘social welfare’ or other imagined entity as found in a study of Epworth [38]. This view was also observed in the late nineties by a team of American scholars trying to understand the attitude of planners to food. They concluded that planners were ‘strangers’ to matters to do with urban food in spite of the important role of planners to settlements and the basic nature of food to humanity [27]. These scholars further argued that this should not be the case because planners have an important role to play in food systems planning as part of settlement planning [26].

1 Discussion by Planners at the annual Zimbabwe Institute of Regional and Urban Planners (ZIRUP)

at the resort town of Nyanga, on 30 August 2018.

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3 Emerging Issues Planners’ values are detached from the people, they appear to serve other interests. The two examples given in the introduction above clearly put across the position. The fact that most planners thought that accepting informal livelihoods including informal food markets is akin to ‘ruralising’ urban areas is typically modernist. More importantly it demonstrates a detachment from their lived reality. Such a view would be understandable if it was shared in a discussion amongst planners living in the developed countries. But these are Zimbabwean planners working in cities with high levels of poverty, unemployment and poor infrastructure. Almost all of them grew up in environments where some of their parents survived on the same livelihoods and even financed their planning education with money raised from informal activities. There are high levels of informality in most urban areas with recent studies showing as much as 90 percent informal food outlets in the settlement of Epworth [38]. Even when it is argued that Zimbabwe is undergoing economic hardships, earlier studies still showed the prevalence of informal food traders even in the early years of independence when the economy was considered comparatively stronger [34, 33]. Planners do not think food is their responsibility. This is disturbing since the point has been made in the introduction to the chapter that planners are responsible for imagining and creating cities. They provide for and organise every land use that exists. What they cannot provide for will not be available nor accessed by the residents of these urban settlement. Yet scholars have clearly found out that the ‘immediate threat to food security in the region (Southern Africa) is not food availability but rather accessibility’ ([5]: 287). Access to food refers to where people can reach food. This, in turn, is impacted by several planning factors. These include the existence and convenience of food markets. How many and how far are the food spaces from the people that need food? If markets are far away from people, it means people will struggle to get to those markets and may pay more to get there. This, in turn, means the food may become more expensive for some and in the process become less accessible. In a similar manner, if regulations criminalise certain food supply options, it not only reduces access, but also may increase prices thereby limiting access. Planners also prefer to deal with formal types of food systems. This is reflected in what they see and accept. In a study of Harare, planners were asked what food markets exist in their city. Most planners responded that existing food spaces for food retail were grocery stores, supermarkets, restaurants and fast foods outlets. This was even though research had shown that most food spaces in the residential areas are mainly informal [38]. Yes, supermarkets, restaurants, grocery shops and other formal food spaces existed, but they only constituted ten percent of food outlets. There were many other existing food spaces of an informal nature that served most residents but remained invisible to the planners. The planners only see what they accept and it appeared not to register in their minds that most of the consumed food is sold by vendors and not at the few formal shopping centres.

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Planners are mainly control-minded as opposed to facilitatory, so their solutions lean more on stopping. As indicated in their responses to the growing informality that they see as a problem, planners prefer to shut down those spaces rather than work with them to nurture them and ensure that their livelihoods are maintained.2 In addressing this, there is need to revisit the approach of the profession and its many tools. Different laws that are used in planning management are control-oriented and generally do not encourage users to facilitate progressive solutions. The same applies to the different plans that are used to regulate land use, such as master plans and local plans. They state very clearly what is permitted and what is prohibited but rarely include space for innovation. So, any land use is either permitted (legal) or prohibited (illegal) with no room for any other way. Yet these plans are in many instances out of date and so fail to capture current challenges and innovations. Since planners are custodians of these planning tools and use them in their practice, the rigidity and inappropriateness of the solutions in the plans are reflected in the conduct of planners. Hence, to change the observed or perceived control-minded approach of planners, their tools of the trade should be equally addressed as the attitudes of planners are addressed. Planners believe they are acting in public interest; they want that which is best for the people. They however, impose their elitist notion of public interest. There are a few principles that planning considers sacrosanct and shapes public interest. These are the desire for order, safety in public health, equitable and efficient distribution of resources, protection of the environment. These can still be achieved with a different set of standards from those planners have always used.

4 Discussion Planners must first move away from their single notion of what is public interest. The diversity in the publics must define the real public interest. Communities comprise different groups, such as the rich, the poor, those with homes and the homeless, formal and informal business operators and so on. Settlements are therefore heterogenous rather than homogenous entities. The different groups or publics mean that there are diverse interests. When planners indicate that they are taking a certain position in public interest it gives the impression that there is a single notion of what constitutes public interest. This cannot be true in a community that has different perspectives about what is good for them. Planners should rather seek to understand the different interests and see public interest as a delicate and fair balance of the different interests of the different ‘publics’. Food conversations must be given more space in planning discourses and practice. The profession of planning and the practitioners in the profession have not included let alone prioritised food in their production and management of space. The point has 2 Planners at the 2018 Zimbabwe Institute of Regional and Urban Planners Annual School in Nyanga

indicated discomfort with informal livelihoods.

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already been made that they must consider all land uses that shape how people live and what needs of these people are conveniently met. Food is a basic need without that people die. The urban food security situation is worsening in much of the global South [16, 20, 24]. Many households particularly in poor neighbourhoods are not meeting their food needs in many cities [5]. There are other food provisioning types that are important to the communities but are unaccepted by planners and authorities. Literature and experiences with planners demonstrate that planners dislike certain urban spaces [14, 17, 30, 47]. In food production it has been documented that planners do not accept cultivation in public spaces or outside individual plots, spaces known as ‘off-plot’ agricultural areas [48]. In food processing and retail planners tend to have problems accepting food spaces of an informal nature [38]. Even migrant entrepreneurs who source for scarce food items from neighbouring countries and come to trade them off the urban streets of Zimbabwe are criminalised by planners and other development control officials [6]. This is despite the fact that food may be in short supply locally. It does not matter to these officials that these small-scale migrant traders are providing a critical service and contributing to urban food security. Planners clearly do not have food literacy. They must be food literate if they are to plan for diverse and sustainable food systems. Some scholars have argued that there is need to revamp the planning curriculum of most planning schools in the global South so that they reflect and address the many urbanisation challenges faced by cities in the region [44]. Food literacy should certainly form part of the complete curriculum of these planning schools if this gap in food literacy is to be closed. For planners working in cities where the majority of residents suffer food insecurity, a good understanding of nutrition and general urban food systems will go a long way in making them prioritise food when they plan and manage cities. For now, it would appear they only see the need for those food outlets falling within the traditional land use zones they were taught in planning school. There is little consideration of the contextual realities of their cities. Perhaps a comprehensive training in urban food systems and the diverse types for different stakeholders would help change the mindset. There must be a common vision of what are acceptable food spaces. Planning for food is too big a responsibility to be left in the hands of a powerful but minority profession of individuals that have already been demonstrated to take an elitist approach. Due to the strategic importance of the subject of food, a multi-stakeholder approach must be taken when planning for food so that all constituent components must be considered in a holistic manner. Planners have not delivered food spaces that meet all stakeholders’ needs. Rather, they have constrained other avenues that could be providing more varied and affordable types of food. Planning in Zimbabwe must be located in the broader common global aspirations, such as SDGs. When assessing Zimbabwean planners in a Ph.D. thesis, a conclusion was reached that Zimbabwean planners have been affected by their country’s two decades of isolation from the international community. Planners were observed to plan without considering topical global development issues, such as SDGs, increasing

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informality in the global South and urban food security [38]. The country’s isolation has meant that its planning professionals have not benefitted from international discourses that have shaped development in the past decade. If Zimbabwe is not going to be left behind in pursuing global development goals, socio-economic and development plans must be informed by global aspirations. Planners must be conscious about global efforts to end hunger, poverty and make cities inclusive.3 When planners ignore their role in food systems planning, the consequences are not neutral, the food system suffers. Planners cannot sustain the position that they do not have a responsibility for food and do nothing about it. Firstly, there is no neutral position that they can adopt about food. When they decide where to locate shopping centres and malls including what shops are provided in those spaces, when they decide whether to accommodate a food market in a residential area or not, when they decide whether a grinding mill in a residential suburb is permitted or not, when they make any of these planning decisions, they are also making a food systems decision. When they make any decision that affects the urban food system, they are making a decision that will affect the food security status of the city. This is why it has been argued that when planners ignore food systems in their planning it is not a neutral decision, it affects the food system negatively [27]. So, planners cannot ignore their role in food systems and food security planning, they affect it by their actions or non-actions. Responding to areas of food provisioning that are not currently prioritised and legitimized is responding to the crying need to provide for and protect vulnerable livelihoods. Scholars are advocating for a new type of planners that are responsive to the livelihoods of the poor including informal and small-scale enterprises [29]. The approach to creating food secure systems should be integrated and consider the linkages amongst different aspects of the urban food system [12]. These should be responses that take a holistic approach and considers all the nodes and flows. There is need to provide nodes, such as production, processing and retailing nodes. But these ideas ought to be linked so the flows between nodes must be equally considered in planning by ensuring that both sites and access to different sites are planned for. These should also consider different class and even cultural needs. Different food needs must be provided for in a convenient manner. This requires planners to look beyond what they have always done but consider different needs. Addressing planners’ attitudes to what constitutes a modern city may help in getting them to accept informal food spaces that they demonstrate discomfort with thereby exposing them to risk of removal. When planners do not support urban agriculture, it may be partly attributable to the association that farming has with rural areas [1]. When they see urban food production, they associate it with backwardness and so see it reducing standards. Similarly, when they fight food vendors and informal food processors, they are fighting the ‘poor standards’ that they think these outlets are associated with. It is therefore, important to address planners’ discomfort with anything rural or backward. There is nothing backward about a vendor selling tomatoes at a street corner bringing convenience to many households in the area. 3 Goals,

1, 2 and 11 of the SDGs.

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There is innovation in a vendor who sells 2 kg packs of mealie meal that a poor family can afford whilst they look for money for the next meal. It is not backward. Maybe the environment around that they trade can be improved in public health interest, but again the standards must be attainable by the traders. A decent informal working environment is possible and should be acceptable in a poor neighbourhood. This will provide sustainable food spaces where the operators are not working in perpetual fear of forceful removal.

5 Conclusion This chapter examined planners’ views regarding their role in urban food systems planning. Significantly, planners in Zimbabwe do not think they have anything to do with urban food systems planning. When they see areas with inadequate food provisioning and when they are in discussions regarding urban food security, they do not believe they should be accountable or take part. This is profound because planning covers every land use including spaces where food is supposed to be produced, processed, sold and routes through that food flows. The chapter also showed that planners desire formal food spaces as part of their wider modernist agenda. Informal and other aesthetically unattractive spaces challenge the modernist agenda and the attainment of ‘world-class’ city status that they ironically desire in an environment where even basic infrastructure cannot be afforded. Such spaces are in their opinion ‘ruralising’ cities and therefore, do not belong to urban areas. They are quickly classified as illegal so that they can be cleaned up. The above views prevalent in Zimbabwean planners are reflective of the influence of elites in planning and the lack of voice of the low-income majority residents. They also reflect an inappropriate training curriculum for planners. It also demonstrates the pervasiveness of colonialism and its remnants in these attitudes. The colonialists may be long gone but their ideas of what is a good city remain ingrained in these planners. These views and the planning practice is unsustainable as it is out of sync with the socio-economic environment. There is need for a re-orientation of the planners by revamping their training curriculum. They need to re-imagine the African city that accommodates the realities and aspirations of all citizens. A food secure city must fit within its contextual realities. With the prevailing attitudes from these influential professionals, food security in the Zimbabwean cities will remain a pipe dream. Without food security, these cities cannot achieve the SDGs nor effectively deal with new challenges such as urban food security or pandemics such as the coronavirus.

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Training Institutions and Food in the Curriculum Emily Motsi

Keywords Training · Curricula · Diet · Health · Behaviour · Nutrition · Knowledge

1 Introduction There are rapid developments that have shaped the food environment. The food system has become increasingly difficult to navigate due to ever shifting societal issues, such as changes in food and food systems particularly the shift in global focus towards the Urban food Agenda which envisions the development of resilient, integrated, sustainable and food systems that ensure that urban dwellers are free from hunger and malnutrition [6], changing patterns of food eating and cooking; changes in food supply and marketing; changing dietary habits; growth in processed foods and increase in retailing of food through supermarkets, takeout meals or street-vendored food. Individuals, families and communities need to adequately navigate the food system to ensure food intake that contributes to health and well-being. Procuring of food and maintenance of health and well-being has become a challenge. Food security and nutrition has also been recognised in the New Urban Agenda as a major challenge for cities and local government [25]. Food and nutrition education have emerged in literature as a viable approach to rectifying the issues raised above. This chapter examines efforts being made to transfer food and nutrition education and well-being knowledge and skills to primary and secondary school learners through educational institutions.

E. Motsi (B) Department of Art Design and Technology Education, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 P. Toriro and I. Chirisa (eds.), Environmental Resilience, Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0305-1_10

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2 Literature Review The aim of the review is to draw from literature and highlight factors influencing the incorporation of food in the school curriculum. The benefits of integrating food in the school curriculum are also interrogated. Food education approaches adopted in educational interventions are discussed. The review also explores three different curriculum frameworks that have been designed to guide the teaching of food in primary and secondary schools at international and local level. Issues emerging in the teaching of food in the school curriculum are also discussed. Finally, the review is concluded by highlighting lessons learnt and the implication this has to the development of food and nutrition programmes in educational settings.

3 Factors Influencing the Incorporation of Food in the School Curriculum Shifting societal issues and government policy initiatives continue to create demands on the school curriculum in addressing public health concerns in both developed and developing countries. Societal issues that have been identified in literature as giving impetus to the inclusion of food in the school curriculum include; changes in food and food system, changing patterns of food eating and cooking, changes in food supply and marketing. Political driven policy initiatives used to intervene in curbing high incidences of under nutrition and micronutrient deficiency among children and youths are also the usual drivers of the inclusion of food in the school curriculum particularly in developing countries. Global United Nations driven policy initiatives such as the New Urban Agenda and FAO’s Urban Food Agenda have set out frameworks which inform the core functions, outcomes and strategies that can be integrated in the school food curriculum for the development of resilient and sustainable food systems and urban settlements. Changes are occurring in food and food systems of developed and developing countries. There has been a fundamental shift from consumption of whole food ingredients to processed and ultra-processed, low nutrient and energy dense food commodities and sweetened beverages that are mass produced and shelf stable for long periods of time [19]. This shift coined in literature as ‘nutrition transition’ or ‘diet globalisation’ [14, 18, 19] has been promoted through the opening up of foreign trade and is supported through shifts in global and local food industry production systems and marketing and changes in household life style and choice. Of particular note is that in Southern Africa, industrial food processing and food supply systems have replaced traditionally nutritious foods still available in rural areas with nutritionally inferior energy dense, but cheaper food and drink [10]. Diets high in fats and sweeteners are thus, quite common among urban populations in Southern Africa including Zimbabwe. Coincidentally this is giving rise to incidences of chronic non-communicable diseases, such as hypertension, heart disease, Type 2

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diabetes and the cancers associated with obesity, high salt and sugar intakes. The negative effect of the changes occurring in the food and food systems is the alteration of dietary habits and life-style patterns. Traditional knowledge and skills are no longer sufficient and appropriate for handling the dietary excesses and imbalances created by unhealthy eating habits. New knowledge and skills rendered through structured educational programmes are required to enable people to choose healthy diets consistent with nutritional needs. Factors, such as globalisation and the growth of processed pre-prepared food, have created contemporary norms around food cooking and eating primarily characterized by convenience [3]. Pre-prepared, ultra-processed convenience food commodities free consumers from the burden of food preparation. As Caraher [2] argues, overreliance on pre-prepared convenient food items has caused ‘deskilling’ among citizen as many people no longer possess the necessary knowledge and skills to prepare food from whole food ingredients. This has caused key gaps in food knowledge and skills, such as the selection of food and particular products (i.e. informed shopping), food storage and preservation, cooking and related activities of food preparation [13]. Political driven policy initiatives are implemented regularly in nations across the world to intervene on critical public health issues. For example, in Slovenia, a national nutrition policy was developed in 2004 that set measures and activities for improving nutritional habits of Slovenian citizens. One of the strategic goals was to develop healthy nutrition habits. The strategy adopted to achieve this goal was through the reshaping of educational content in the school curriculum [15]. In England, the rising prevalence of obesity had become a major issue. The government made a decision to include a programme titled ‘Licence to Cook’ in the school curriculum as a direct response to the growing concern about obesity in the population [4]. The ‘Licence to Cook’ programme ensured that learners aged 11–16 had the opportunity to learn practical cooking skills together with knowledge of nutrition, diet, hygiene and safety and wise buying. In Zimbabwe, the government developed a National Nutrition Strategy (NNS) 2014–2018 whose vision was ‘a Zimbabwe free from hunger and malnutrition’. Its mission was to implement an evidence-based nutrition programme for children and youths [28]. This initiative was developed after the government recognised that there was a growing level of chronic malnutrition exacerbated by food insecurity and poverty among children, youths and mothers of children less than five years of age [28]. One of the causal factors attributed to this situation was the inadequate knowledge and practices regarding appropriate healthy diets for children and adults. One of the eight key result areas set out in the intervention programme was focused on improving the quality of adolescent and maternal health. A strategy adopted for the implementation of the programme was through the review and update of the primary and secondary school curriculum that incorporated adolescent and maternal nutrition in the New Curriculum of 2014–2022. Global policy driven initiatives such the FAO framework for Urban Food Agenda have been developed to initiate a global change programme that seeks to eliminate hunger and malnutrition in communities and (urban and peri-urban) ensure food security through coordinated policies, plans and actions targeted at different levels

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of government, institutions and stakeholders involved in urban and territorial development [6]. Institutions such as schools do therefore have a space in promoting this initiative through the food and nutrition curriculum. Empowerment of different actors at different levels is viewed within the FOA framework on the Urban Food Agenda as the key vehicle to achieving the development of inclusive and sustainable food systems and food security and nutrition [6]. This means that nutrition educators if empowered will be vital to the achievement of the targeted outcomes set out in Urban Food Agenda framework. The FAO framework is guided by four cross cutting principles (i.e. rural-urban synergies, social inclusion and equity, resilience and stability and food systems interconnection) which inform the core functions required to achieve the targeted outcomes and guide implementation [6]. These four principles can be integrated in the food and nutrition curriculum as cross cutting themes that are explored in each content and skills segment of the food curriculum. The targeted outcomes for the Urban Food Agenda focus on the following five dimensions; mainstreaming and policy support, governance, knowledge generation and capacity development, outreach and advocacy and partnership and investments. Some of these dimensions can find space within the food curriculum for example through mainstreaming The Urban Food Agenda into the food curriculum at both primary and secondary school level. Benefits of Integrating Food in the School Curriculum There is a growing recognition of the critical role of the school context in the development of healthy dietary behaviours and nutrition-related knowledge among children and adolescents. In many communities in both developed and developing countries, schools have become the main place where children and adolescents learn about healthy eating and life-style habits [16, 22]. Studies have shown that food education in the classroom has numerous benefits to children and adolescents’ health outcomes and academic performance. In developing countries, nutrition education has been reported to have contributed to positive impact on the micronutrient status of children and contributed to the prevention of obesity [16]. Studies conducted in the US have shown a decrease in risk of obesity among elementary school children [8]; improved cognitive development [11]. In addition, when the curriculum is linked to use of local foods and biodiversity there is a possibility of enriching the curriculum through integrating elements of cultural preservation and environmental sustainability [26]. Schools are also considered an ideal place for promoting healthy eating because they offer a unique opportunity to reach children on a large-scale even in rural areas [26]; schools also reach children at a critical age when food habits are being established [7]. Thus, the school is part of a network of influence that shape eating patterns and attitudes. Food Education Approaches Adopted in Educational Interventions Paradigms are used to provide a philosophical base for actions and activities in educational programmes. Within nutrition education, the main paradigm identified in literature as guiding approaches to teaching food and nutrition education is the ‘depletion

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paradigm’ [27]. In the depletion paradigm, diets were viewed as deficient as they lack vital micronutrients (vitamins and minerals). This led to the design of nutrientbased interventions, such as fortification and supplementation. Food and nutrition education in the school curriculum is then focused on teaching learners’ scientific information about nutrients and nutrient deficiencies. Food preparation and cooking skills development focused on cooking techniques that prevent micronutrients losses. The main disadvantage of the ‘depletion paradigm’ highlighted in literature is that it tends to present a narrow view of nutrition [23, 24, 21]. Much of the nutrition education has focused on emphasising the health benefits of single nutrients in isolation of other nutrients thereby, failing to recognise what Jacob and Tapsell [12] refer to as ‘food synergy’, i.e. the interdependent functioning of nutrients in eradication of nutritional deficiencies. The ‘depletion paradigm’ has also been criticized for its over focus on single nutrients instead of food, meals and dietary patterns [27]. This has tended to create education that focuses on changing small aspects of people diets instead of having a more comprehensive approach to developing healthy eating behaviours and attitudes. Calls are currently being made in literature for a shift away from emphasis on narrow knowledge focussed approaches to broader forms of food and nutrition education that enables people to put their knowledge into practice [20, 27]. Most food education programmes are viewed as emphasising declarative knowledge’ what’ rather than ‘how’. As Wosley [27] explains, people tend to know the importance of a low-fat diet or effect of a high salt intake but, they do not know how to adopt them. Attention should now be drawn more towards the development of food competencies as these have greater potential in enabling people to access and utilise food effectively. The rights-based approach to food systems is the intervention strategy recommended in the Urban Food Agenda for any initiative/programme that seeks to address food insecurity and nutrition [6]. Social justice and recognition of diversity are the two key elements emphasised in the right-based approach to food systems. This approach is of value and is appropriate for a school food curriculum as it enables nutrition educators to utilise transformative learning methods that enable learners to explore food insecurity and nutrition issues in advantaged and disadvantaged communities. The goal of transformative learning is to enable students to understand problems such as food insecurity whilst empowering them with skills, knowledge, values and attitudes to tackle the global and national problems [5, 17]. Transformative learning experiences that enable learners to have open conversation, learn collaboratively and engage in self-reflection are ideal for engaging issues dealing with social justice and diversity urban food systems. Location of Food in the Curriculum and Its Historical Developments in Zimbabwe Globally, the teaching of food is mainly located in Home Economics curricula. It has also found a place in Health and Physical Education curricula where food and nutrition are linked to exercise. In Zimbabwe, food was first taught as cookery in the ‘1890’ as part of the formal training of African woman before their employment as

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domestic servants for the white settlers [1]. Later in 1940, cookery was introduced into a formal primary school curriculum for girls in a subject called Domestic Science. Cookery with other subjects, such as sewing, laundry and first-aid, were meant to improve the livelihood of communities [1]. In the 1970s, Domestic Science was renamed Home Economics, cookery, together with needlework and housecraft was part of repertoire of practical subjects in this area. At independence, in 1980, a new education system was ushered in, where Home Economics subjects continued to be taught but under new names that saw Cookery being renamed Food and Nutrition. Currently, focus is on integration of the design approach to the teaching of practical oriented technical subjects. The curriculum has thus, shifted to design and technology and names have changed once again. To reflect this technological aspect of the subject, Food and Nutrition is now referred to Food Technology and Design.

4 Examples of Curriculum Frameworks for Integrating Food in the School Curriculum Different curriculum frameworks have been designed to guide the teaching of food in primary and secondary schools. The curriculum framework illustrations presented in Figs. 1, 2 and 3 are examples drawn from international and local education systems. The curriculum framework in Fig. 1 is a guide to the knowledge and skills primary school children are expected to acquire as they learn about food. Primary schools are identified as particularly suitable vehicles for food and nutrition education as they catch children when they are younger and their habits are still being formed [7]. As reflected in Fig. 1, the core activity in this curriculum framework is the teaching of food preparation and cooking. This therefore entails the incorporation of practical food classes and the setting up of safe food preparation and cooking space in the classroom. The teaching of food preparation and cooking focuses on four key aspects that include, the selection and efficient use of a range of cooking equipment, an appreciation of cultural diversity through preparation of a broad range of ingredients and healthy recipes, ability to select food based on its nutritional, functional and sensory properties including other aspects, such as cost, seasonality and sustainability, ability to develop skills in planning cooking simple meals safely and hygienically for a healthy varied diet. As reflected in Fig. 1, the aspects that are then integrated and support the teaching of food preparation and cooking are the nutrition component, consumer awareness, food safety and hygiene and the design, making and evaluation of food and food products. The nutrition component focuses on such areas the importance of a balanced diet, food requirement needs through the life-cycle, nutrients provided by the different foods and understanding healthy eating habits. In the consumer awareness component, students learn about the origins of food (from production to processing), they also need to recognise the range of factors involved in food choice, understand how to make informed choice to achieving a healthy balanced diet through utilising food

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Promoting and Applying Nutrition

Designing, making and evaluating Food

Food Preparation and Cooking

Applying aspects of Consumer Awareness

Implementing Good Food Safety and Hygiene

Fig. 1 Curriculum framework one. Adapted from Public Health England [20]. Teaching Food in the Primary school curriculum

Nutritional needs for Growth and Development

FOOD and NUTRITION Key Concepts Development of Factors influencing Food choice, food preparation and eating patters

Food Preparation Skills

Fig. 2 Curriculum framework 2. Source Linking Food and Nutrition to Health and Physical Education in the New Zealand curriculum

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Nutrition Science

Consumer Education

Food Technology, food processing

Food preparation and cooking Skills

Food Selection and use

Fig. 3 Curriculum framework 3. Source Food Technology and Design syllabus, Form 1-4, 2015– 2022, Ministry of Primary and Secondary School Education, Zimbabwe

labels and nutritional information. The food safety and hygiene component emphasise on the importance of good personal hygiene in food preparation, avoidance of food contaminants that can lead to food poisoning and food related illnesses. The design, make and evaluate food component provides opportunities for problem solving through the design and development of recipes/menus fit for purpose for particular individuals and groups. The curriculum framework presented in this section has several merits. One merit of this curriculum framework is that it addresses a key gap created by contemporary norms around food cooking that emphasis over reliance on pre-prepared, ultra-processed convenient foods causing a decline in knowledge and skills on food preparation using whole food ingredients. Learners are at these elementary stages are adopting food and nutrition practices that promote home healthy eating patterns. Secondly, the curriculum focuses on promotion of individual behaviour change (through the actions and activities in the practical food preparation lessons) and empowers learners to make appropriate choices directed at proper food selection, preparation, consumption and lifestyle. Curriculum Framework Two The second framework is for a Food and Nutrition curriculum offered at secondary school level. It is designed around three key concepts, i.e. nutritional needs for growth and development, development of food preparation skills and exploration of factors

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influencing food choices, food preparation and eating patterns. The nutrition component enables students to understand the relationship between nutrition, exercise and well-being. Included in this component is an exploration of factors that influence the student’s own food eating patterns and enables the student to take positive action in relation to food selection and preparation. With regards to the second key concept, i.e. development of food preparation skills, the aim is to enable students to prepare and cook nutritionally sound and safe food. In addition, the students need to know foods that are culturally, socially and economically accepted in various situations. The third key concept enables the student to examine the diverse cultural and other influences on selection and preparation of food and understanding how these factors impact their own and other people’s health. The merit of this curriculum framework is that it allows students to explore the food and nutrition related issues enabling them to be aware of the impact of their choices on their health. It also focuses a lot on promotion of individual behaviour change. It can lead to the adoption of a healthier diet and improve the students’ nutritional wellbeing through changing their food and nutrition attitudes, knowledge and practices. The only demerit is that sufficient motivation must constantly be provided in order to create lasting effects and changes. Curriculum Framework Three The third curriculum framework is a Food Technology and Design curriculum offered at secondary school level. As reflected in Fig. 3, the framework has five components, i.e. nutrition, food selection and use, development of food preparation skills, food technology and food processing and consumer education. The nutrition science component focuses on content relating to nutrients for a healthy diet, nutritional needs and health of the individual, family, community and the nation, causes and effects of malnutrition and preventative strategies. The food selection and use component emphasises on use of indigenous foods and other locally available foods in the preparation of nutritious meals. In development of food preparation and cooking skills the aim is to equip students with skills to plan, prepare, cook and present different foods and beverages. Food technology and food processing is linked to food security and in this area, students learn how to process food safely to reduce nutrient losses and increase food reserves at household level. The consumer education component focuses on wise food shopping influences of advertising on food purchases and economic use of resources. The merit of this curriculum framework is that it not only focuses on the individual learner but, anticipates that the acquisition of food and nutrition knowledge and practices at school will translate into better nutritional and health outcomes in families, communities and the nation. Secondly, it emphasises on the use of indigenous food knowledge and use of local food thereby, factoring in issues of a sustainable food supply within the food system where a populations’ access to nutritious and affordable food may be a challenge. This approach is common in developing counties continually dealing with issues of improving the nutritional status of their rural and urban populations and ensuring food security at household level. The demerit of

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this curriculum framework is it’s over emphasis on scientific knowledge about nutrients and nutrient deficiencies. This, as discussed earlier, does not provide a more comprehensive approach to the development of healthy eating behaviours and attitudes among the learner but, is rather narrow as it focuses on changing small aspects of people diets. Emerging Issues Key issues emerging from this review are described and explained in the forthcoming paragraphs. • Shifting societal issues and government policy initiatives continue to create demands on the school curriculum in addressing public health concerns in both developed and developing countries. Public health concerns, such as the rising incidence of malnutrition and non-communicable diseases, are addressed through a school curriculum that teaches and promotes healthy dietary patterns. • The negative effect of the changes occurring in the food and food systems is the alteration of dietary habits and life-style patterns. Ultra-processed and convenient foods are becoming a big part of diets of many rural and urban dwellers leading to the consumption of energy dense and low nutritional food in daily diets. • Traditional knowledge and skills are no longer sufficient and appropriate for handling the dietary excesses and imbalances created by unhealthy eating habits. This knowledge has usually been centred on knowing what nutrients to include in one’s diet, how nutrients are utilised for growth and development. Despite been armed with such knowledge dietary excesses still continue to exist among certain populations. Knowledge, skills and abilities that influence behaviour change is what is now required to promote adoptions of healthy eating patterns and lifestyles. • Many people particularly among the affluent population no longer possess the necessary knowledge and skills to prepare food from whole food ingredients. This has caused key gaps in food knowledge and skills, such as the selection of food and particular products (i.e. informed shopping), food storage and preservation, cooking and related activities of food preparation. Inclusion of food preparation and handling knowledge and skills in any food curriculum is meant to develop in learners an appreciation and competency in planning and preparing food from a variety of source in the food system. • The school plays a critical role in the development of healthy dietary behaviours and nutrition-related knowledge among children and adolescents. The school is able to teach and reinforce healthy eating behaviour through a well-structured competency-based curriculum. • Food and nutrition education in the classroom have numerous benefits to children and adolescents’ health outcomes and academic performance. Food and nutrition education is increasingly being explored as a way to the prevention of obesity and for the promotion of healthy eating and physical activity among children and youths. In addition, studies conducted in US and Europe has linked healthy food choices, improved self-esteem to better performance in the classroom particularly among adolescents.

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• The ‘depletion paradigm’ tends to present a narrow view of nutrition as it creates education that focuses on changing small aspects of people diets instead of having a more comprehensive approach focusing on the development of healthy eating behaviours and attitudes. • The rights based approach to food systems if integrated in the food curriculum enables learners to explore social justice and recognise diversity in food systems and food insecurity and nutrition issues in advantaged and disadvantaged communities. • Different curriculum frameworks have been designed to guide the teaching of food in primary and secondary schools. These can have a personal approach focused on promotion of individual behaviour change or can target not only individuals but is anticipated to have a trickle-down effect that also causes changes in nutritional status of families, communities and the nation.

5 Lessons Learnt Some lessons learnt are that: • New knowledge and skills rendered through structured educational programmes are required to enable people to choose healthy diets consistent with nutritional needs. • The current state of knowledge and skill set possessed by many people in both urban and rural populations and the content offered in school-based food and nutrition curriculum has to be re-evaluated as it is not providing the expected solution to countering the rise in incidences of NCDs and malnutrition. Poor dietary eating habits continue to have a negative impact on the population’s health in both developed and developing nations. The school-based food and nutrition curriculum thus, needs to be refocused moving away from emphasis on nutrition education to food education. Nutrition education focuses on nutrient intake and utilisation in the body for growth and development. Such an approach though providing important knowledge is deficient as it does not equip young people with knowledge, skills on how to feed themselves correctly. Focus when the food education approach is taken is on enabling children and adolescents to make informed food choices and develop healthier eating habits and lifestyles. It is no longer sufficient just to teach children and adolescents the effects of particular dietary patterns e.g. a high sugar or saturated fat intake. The new knowledge required is on how to adopt for example a diet low in sugar or fat intake through being equipped with competencies (knowledge, skills and abilities) on how to produce, plan, select, prepare and process food in a way that leads to optimal healthy lifestyles. • Schools are an ideal place for promoting healthy eating as they reach children at a critical age when food habits are being established. • Children’s experiences with food begin in infancy and continue to develop as they transition to solid food. At this point the parent or caregiver is the primary

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influencer of a child’s eating behaviour. When children enter school at ECD level the school and community environment become part of the network of influencers that has an impact on the child’s eating behaviour. The school is critical in that it becomes an environment were healthy eating habits can be further taught and reinforced. As schools develop a food curriculum, they take cognisant of the fact that children and adolescents eating habits are susceptible to many external influences within their families, school and community. Currently, a number of these influences (television advertising, social media, internet) promote dietary patterns that predispose children and adolescents to obesity. Incorporation of current knowledge, skills and competences in the food and nutrition curriculum in the school coupled with the use of consistent, continuing and age appropriate strategies is essential in promoting optimal eating habits in children and adolescents. • Attention in curriculum design should be focused more towards the development of food competencies as these have greater potential in enabling people to access and utilise food effectively. • Competencies are broader in nature in that besides incorporating core skills and knowledge includes the individual’s behaviour or ability in bringing about desired change. Food competencies enable children and adolescent to make healthy food choices, access and use food effectively using the core set of skills and knowledge they are equipped with. In a curriculum, food competencies are usually structured in a progressional manner with an outline of specific food related tasks and activities learners are expected to accomplish at particular ages. The merit of such an approach is that it allows healthy eating habits to develop over time and impact current and future dietary health.

6 Discussion Several societal shifts that include changes in food and food system; patterns of eating and cooking; dietary patterns and public health concerns have created complexities that make it difficult for people to maintain good health and well-being. Improper food habits and nutrition related practices and the increase in incidences of noncommunicable diseases, such as heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, hypertension and malnutrition are some of the major factors that influencing the incorporation of food in the school curriculum. Integration of food in the school curriculum is an effective strategy for teaching children and adolescents’ desirable food and nutrition practices that enable them to adopt healthier diets hence, improving their nutritional well-being. The Urban Food Agenda cross cutting principles and targeted outcomes can be incorporated in the food curriculum. Through utilising the rightsbased approach, nutrition educators can create transformative learning experiences that enable learners to develop knowledge, skills, values and attitude that contribute to the creation of resilient, inclusive and sustainable food systems in their communities. Several benefits of incorporation food in the school curriculum were identified in

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literature and the significance of the school setting in shaping eating patterns of children and adolescents was also established. The teaching of food is mainly located in Home Economics curricula. The focus in the design of food and nutrition curriculum should be on empowering children and adolescents with food and nutrition knowledge and skills that enable them to make appropriate choices in food selection, preparation and consumption. Focus should also be on promoting the adoption of healthy eating patterns and lifestyles that last.

7 Conclusion The chapter examined the integration of food in the school curriculum. Key issues included in the review were a discussion of factors that drive the inclusion of food in primary and secondary school curricula, paradigms that support the integration and benefits of including food in the school curriculum. Three examples of curriculum frameworks used in school settings to guide the teaching of food and an analysis of the merits and demerits of each framework were also presented. The chapter concluded by establishing issues of significance emerging from the review and highlighting lessons that have been learnt.

References 1. Atkinson NJ (1972) Teaching Rhodesians: a history of educational policies in Rhodesia. Longman, Salisbury 2. Caraher M (2012) Cooking in crisis: lessons from the UK. http://arrow.dit.ie/cgi/viewcontent. cgi?article=1006&context=dgs. Accessed 21 Jan 2020 3. Colatruglio S, Slater J (2014) Food literacy: bridging the gap between food, nutrition and wellbeing. In: Deer F, Falkenberg T, McMillan B, Sims L (eds) Sustainable well-being: concepts, issues and educational practices. ESW Press, Winnipeg, MB, pp 37–55 4. DES (2008) Licence to cook. Http://webarchive.nationalarchive.gov.uk/2010041351441/ http//licencetocook.org.uk/information/faqs.aspx. Accessed 21 Jan 2020 5. Edapp (2019) Transformative learning. https://www.edapp.com/blog/transformative-learning/ 6. FAO (2019) FAO framework for the urban food agenda. Rome. https://doi.org/10.4060/ca3 151en 7. FAO (2005) Nutrition in primary schools, volume 1: the reader. FAO Food and Nutrition Division. Publishing Management Service, Rome 8. Fairclough ST et al (2013) Promoting healthy weight in primary school children through physical activity and nutrition education: a pragmatic evaluation of change, randomised intervention study. BMC Public Health 13:626–637 9. Food Technology and Design syllabus, Form 1-4, 2015–2022. Ministry of Primary and Secondary School Education, Zimbabwe 10. Frayne B, Crush J, McLachlan M (2014) Global nutrition and development in Southern African cities. Food Sec 6:101–112 11. Ickovics JR et al (2014) Health and academic achievement: cumulative effects of health assets on standardised test scores of urban youths in the United States. J Sch Health 84(1):40–48

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12. Jacobs DR Jr, Tapsell LC (2007) Food, not nutrients is the fundamental unit in nutrition. Nutr Rev 65(10):439–450 13. Jaffe JA, Gerther M (2006) Victual vicissitudes: consumer deskilling and the gendered transformation of food systems. Agric Hum Values 23(2):143–162 14. Keats S, Wiggins, S (2014) Future diets: implications for agriculture and food prices. ODI report. http://www.odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/8776.pdf. Accessed 20 Jan 2020 15. Kostanjevec S, Jerman J, Koch V (2011) The effects of nutrition education on 6th graders knowledge of nutrition in nine-year primary schools in Slovenia. Eurasia J Math Sci Technol Educ 74(4):243–252 16. Lobstein T, Jackson-Leach R, Moodie ML, Hall KD, Gortmaker SL, Swinburn BA, James WPT, Wang Y, McPherson K (2015) Child and adolescent obesity: part of a bigger picture. Lancet 385(9986):2510–2520 17. Mezirow J (2000) Learning as transformation: critical perspectives on a theory in progress. Jossey-Boss, San Francisco 18. Popkin BM, Adar LS, Ng SW (2012) Global nutrition transition and the pandemic of obesity in developing countries. Nutrit Rev 70(1):3–21 19. Proctor FJ, Bergegue JA (2016) Food systems at the urban-rural interface. Working paper series document no. 194. Rimisp, Santaigo Chile 20. Public Health England (2015) Food teaching in primary schools: a framework of knowledge and skills. PHE Publication, British Nutrition Foundation for Public Health England 21. Ruel M, Alderman H, Child Nutrition Study Group (2013) Nutrition-sensitive interventions and programmes: how can they help to acceralate progress in improving maternal and child nutrition. Lancet 383(9891):536–551. https://doi.org/10.1016/50140-6736(13)60843-0 22. Scherr RE, Linnell JD, Dharmar M (2017) A multicomponent school-based intervention; the shaping healthy choices program improves nutrition-related outcomes. J Nutrit Educ Behav 49:368–379 23. Scrinis G (2013) Nutritionism: the science and politics of dietary advice. Columbia University Press, New York 24. The Update Team (2015) Project Phoenix nutrition: time to rise and fly in our new world. World Nutrit 6(9–10):683–693 25. UN (2016) Optimising investments for food security in the new urban agenda, Quito habitat III draft. http://habitat.3.org/thenew-urban-agenda 26. UNSCN (2017) Schools as a system to improve nutrition: A new statement for school-based food and nutrition interventions. http://www.unscn.org. Accessed 21 Jan 2020 27. Wosley A (2015) From nutrients to food literacy. J Home Econ Inst Australia 22(3):13–21 28. Zimbabwe National Nutrition Strategy, 2014–2018, www.fao.org/faolex/results/details/en/c/ LEX-FAOC160334/. Accessed 21 Jan 2020

The Teaching of Home Economics in Primary Schools in Zimbabwe Spiwe Makumbe and Tariro Nyevera

Abstract Home Economics is a practical subject, such that teachers are expected to teach both practical and theory lessons. It is mainly concerned with skill development, so there are more practical lessons as compared to theory lessons. Both the theory and practical lessons address the social, economic and environmental goals as guided by global, regional and national development goals such as New Urban Agenda, Sustainable Development Goals, and Africa Agenda 2063 which address issues of food security and nutrition. Whether pupils work as individuals or as members of a group, home economics is essentially concerned with planning, designing and working; in ways that involve investigation and experiment and the organisation and management of time and materials. It has to do with important issues concerning the social and material welfare of people living, with a greater or lesser degree of independence, as members of families. It is therefore, particularly well placed to play its part in developing a wide range of skills in pupils as they progress through school, because it provides many contexts within which those skills are called into play and that relate closely to pupils’ own homes and families. Keywords Curriculum · Theory · Food · Facility and household · Health · Pupillage

1 Introduction The main purpose of this study is to determine the levels of teaching practical lessons at grade four and five level and identifying factors that affect the levels of teaching practical skills in Home Economics. This information is used to recommend ways in S. Makumbe (B) Department of Art Design and Technology Education, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe e-mail: [email protected] T. Nyevera Department of Demography Settlement and Development, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 P. Toriro and I. Chirisa (eds.), Environmental Resilience, Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0305-1_11

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which practical lessons can be taught in schools. The findings of this study intend to benefit the teachers, parents, pupils and headmasters and the community in general. Information on the teaching of practical lessons in teaching and learning of Home Economics subjects will enlighten all the stakeholders on the negative effects that affect the pupils’ learning and career life. Teachers will gain knowledge on the importance of teaching practical lessons in Home Economics. The study will also help teachers to change their attitudes in the teaching of practical lessons in Home Economics. The knowledge gained through home economics helps pupils to improve their lives as individuals and those of the family and the community. By practising practical lessons at home and in community, the teaching of home economics contributes to food security and development goals highlighted in development goals such as New Urban Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals [25]. In Home Economics, pupils are expected to do practical work to support the theory learned in each skill. This is supported by Manwa and Motsi [11] who stated that Home Economics is a subject that relies more on practical teaching and involves all pupils in the practical activities. Practical work is an integral component of the syllabus and social development in communities [25]. Practical activities provide opportunities for achieving the syllabus objectives as the content is studied. A firm base of Home Economics at primary school level enhances one’s success at High school and tertiary levels [13]. The firm base of Home Economics knowledge can be established through the development of various skills. This is supported by the Primary School Home Economics Syllabus [22:1] that observes that, “it lays the foundation for further education in Home Economics related fields e.g. of Food and Nutrition, and for occupation”. This food and nutrition is acknowledged by UN-Habitat [23] as critical in the advent of COVID-19 especially during the stay-athome times. This clearly shows that practical lessons should be done in schools in order for the pupils to acquire the necessary skills. Primary School children need to develop skills at an early stage. To emphasise the importance of skill development in Home Economics, the Minister of Education (in 2007) asked teachers to give Home Economics its correct place in the primary school curriculum as it plays an important role in the everyday lives of pupils.

2 Literature Review Recent studies reveal that teachers feel that Home Economics is very important in today’s education system. Home Economics is an academic discipline that includes in its curriculum as many life skills that help pupils to choose their career paths [9]. Obanya [17] observes that Home Economics is a means of providing both academic and vocational training and work opportunity for people and thereby contributing towards reducing unemployment rates of a nation. Home Economics Education is taught such that pupils do not only learn about a subject matter that is applicable their everyday lives, but they will continue to use as they grow [14]. There are some areas

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of home economics that are the most essential is the emphasis on decision-making, intrapersonal skills and personal development. Ncube and Hlope [15] in their study of Teaching Testing Higher Cognitive Skills state that learning home economics at primary school allows pupils to acquire the necessary social, communications skills and decision-making skills that are crucial for occupational success. Practical skills covered in Home Economics courses provide students with information relevant to their lives as adults. These courses help supply the students with an understanding on how economic, social and cultural factors personally affect them and their behaviours in their life. While other academic courses may cover theoretical aspects personal finance, Obanya [17] notes that home economics gives pupils a more practical aspect, that is applied in everyday life of the students. Because of Home Economics’ real-world applications, students may find these skills valuable to their everyday lives. Home Economics offers real life knowledge and skills that can benefit the students. There are various methods that can be used when teaching home economics. Home Economics teachers should use methods that allow them to teach practical skills in a way that applies to students of different background, learning ability and other capacities. According to Uwaifo and Uwaifo [26], a home economics teacher may choose from a variety of teaching methods because a variety of approaches gives interest, enjoyment and benefit to students. The following methods are unique to Home Economics teaching: The main purpose of a demonstration in Home Economics is to show something or show how something is done. It is commonly used to teach skills in home maintenance, food and nutrition, or clothing and textiles. According to Chanakira [4], it can also be used to convey personal mannerisms relationships between people and other aspects of living that are difficult to explain in words alone. Gwarinda [7:56] argues that, “The demonstration method involves direct action by both the teacher and the pupils and has often been termed “live teaching” it is a useful method whatever the translation of theory into practise”. One can summarize the purpose of a demonstration as, sets a standard for a product, establishes a pattern of procedure for preparation of a given product, helps students to judge the amount of time needed for preparation and actual work. Gwarinda [7:68] argues that, “The project method involves the explanation of a particular theme in detail, or the construction of something by way of merging theory with practice over a period of time”. Ellington and Wellington in Chanakira [4] elaborate by adding that the project method facilitates visual, auditory, textual or any other mode that appeals to other senses in order to maximise the learning and teaching process. Oloyede et al. [18] argues that the project method is a technique that makes learning child centred with the learners getting involved with investigating and exploring different phenomena. Gorb, in Kibett and Kathuri [10] argues that the requirement of the method is for students to organise, analyse and synthesize, leading to the development of skills, like self-direction, problem solving, decision-making and community skills. This method in home economics will definitely help students to learn various skills because they will be heavily involved since it is active learning.

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There are various factors that affect the teaching of practical lessons in Home economics in primary schools. Studies have shown the various factors that affect the teaching of practical lessons. The factors include the following: • There is lack of suitable infrastructure in schools. Afolabi and Adeleke [1] revealed that lack of space and poor provision of standard laboratory and sufficiently equipped laboratory can hamper units and equipment would enhance good effective teaching. Primary schools do not have the Home Economics laboratories so it will be difficult to teach the practical lessons from their classrooms. Unavailability of qualified Home Economics teachers in schools. Orji [19] indicated that the resources also include human resources that are Home Economics teachers. There is a need for specialist teachers in schools. As noted by Kapfunde [8], at school level subject specialisation provides an opportunity for a teacher to specialise in doing that single task that ensures efficiency in production. Mapholisa and Tshabalala [12] say in this regard subject specialisation is credited with improving quality of education and efficiency in education production. • Inadequate preparation, planning, knowing the syllabus well, sufficient reading and organisation of lessons. Most schools do not have the current home economics syllabi. Planning lessons without the syllabus is pointless because one will not teach the skills that are recommended by the syllabus. Afolabi and Adeleke [1] notes this will be difficult to implement because most schools do not have adequate resources.

3 Emerging Issues It emerged from literature review that Home Economics is important for both academic and vocational training and work opportunity for people. However, to enhance that the teaching of Home Economics positively contributes to skills development on pupils, it is important that both theoretical and practical lessons be conducted. Through using demonstrations and the project method, teachers require ample time and lessons to balance between theoretical issues and practical issues. It emerged however that there are certain constraints that inhibit the teaching of practical lessons at schools. These constraints include, among others lack of supportive infrastructure, such as Home Economics laboratories and inadequate preparation, planning, knowing the syllabus well, sufficient reading and organisation.

4 Research Methodology The study is based on a case study design and within the case study design, mixed methods approach was adopted for this study. Data was collected using literature review and document review as secondary data sources and a questionnaire survey as a primary data source. Documents such as the registers, schemes of work and the

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syllabuses were reviewed mainly to assess the level of teaching practical skills in Home Economics. Literature review included published scholarly material such as books and journals. Questionnaires were administered to nineteen teachers at three schools in Epworth, Mabvuku and Tafara in Harare Metropolitan Province. Primary data was analysed with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Thematic analysis was used to analyse secondary data.

5 Lessons Leant The study engaged with nineteen teachers who comprised of twelve females and seven males. Sixteen of the teachers had the Diploma in Education qualification, while three teachers had a Bachelor of Education degree. The most experienced of these had worked for forty years. The least experienced had just one year of post qualification experience. On average the teachers had worked for twelve years as teachers. All the teachers had experience in the teaching of Home economics at Primary school level. None of the nineteen teachers had done Home Economics as their main subject during the pre-service training. In view of the above, there are a limited number of Home Economics teachers in primary schools. The three schools that were engaged with had different number of pupils per class. When the classes are too big it will be difficult to demonstrate to the pupils and to monitor the pupils when doing practical skills one by one. School 1 had classes’ ranging from thirty-five to forty per class, School 2 had classes ranging from thirtyfive to fifty per class and in school 3 classes ranged from forty-six to fifty. With maximum number of classes reaching fifty pupils, the classes can be said to be big and therefore reduces student–teacher ratio. All schools and classes irrespective of their enrolment numbers teach Home Economics albeit with different number of lessons per week. It emerged from the study that the majority of the respondents stick to the prescribed two home economics lessons per week. This is in line with the time allocation prescribed by the primary School syllabus and the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education circular set is one hour per week. However, there are still few classes where four Home Economics lessons are conducted per week despite this being in contrary to circular by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education. The length of lessons has a bearing on the level of understanding of pupils. The study revealed that all three schools are largely abiding by the stipulated requirements of the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education majority on the question concerning length of lessons. The requirements by Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education are that lessons should be 30 min long. From all three schools, 84% of the respondents indicated that their lessons, as indicated on the guiding timetables, were thirty (30) minutes long and 16% of the respondents indicated that their lessons were one hour long. Most of schools have two lessons on their time table. However, what is on the timetable differs from what teachers are practising. The study noted that time allocated on the timetable is not fully utilised as only eight

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teachers had lessons that were thirty (30) minutes long whilst eleven teachers were utilising between 15 and 25 min of the 30 min allocated on the timetable. This shows that the majority of teachers are not giving enough time to the subject. This may be due to the fact that they do not value the subject, bearing in mind that none of the teachers who participated in this study had done Home Economics as their main subject during the pre-service training. The study sought to assess the number of practical lessons that are being conducted per week. It emerged from the study that not much of practical lessons are conducted by teachers as eight of the teachers do not teach practical lessons at all and eleven teachers teach both practical and theory lessons. The majority of those teaching practical lessons indicated that they have only one practical lesson per week. A major challenge limiting the number of practical lessons per week emerged to be that time allocated per week for Home Economics is limited therefore the teachers will not have enough time for the practical lessons. This clearly shows that a high number of the teachers are not teaching practical skills. Pertaining to the time taken in practical lessons, ten respondents indicated that they spent thirty (30) minutes on practical lessons; eight respondents indicated that they spent one (1) hour. and one did not indicate anything. The findings showed that the time for practical lessons is not enough because it is not possible to teach a practical skill in thirty (30) minutes. The observation shows that very little practical skill development was done in the lesson and pupils were often instructed to finish during their own spare time. The finding from this data is that there is clearly very limited time for practical skill development in primary schools. The skills most taught during Home Economics lessons include knitting, temporary stitches, like tacking and running stitch; permanent stitches, like backstitch, chain stitch, cross stitch and blanket stitch. The other skills that were taught include weaving, cleaning furniture and cleaning surfaces or floors. Figure 1 skills taught by teachers during Home Economics lessons in classrooms. Whilst the study noted that teachers are teaching these practical skills, the majority of the teachers however do not monitor pupils as they are doing practical skills. In addition, there was evidence that the skills were being taught with the displays of artefacts on the resource corner. The reason behind not monitoring the pupils this could be, the teacher will have something to occupy the students while they are doing something else or this may be due to the fact that they do not regard the subject as important as other subjects. There are factors that affect the level of teaching practical lessons in Home Economics. Table 1 summarises the factors that were noted in this study. The study noted that teachers appreciate that practical skills enable pupils to be competent. This is evidenced by the respondents who strongly agreed with a mean score of 1.05 and a median score of 1 as depicted on Table 1. The reason for this is that the respondents are aware of the fact that if one is able to do various skills that person will be competent. On competence, Table 1 indicates that respondents strongly agreed with a mean of 1.32 and a median of 1 to the fact that pupils with practical skills become self-reliant through entrepreneurship. This is so because people who are good at different practical skills can start their own business, for example a person with Clothing and Textile skills can start a clothing company. On the statement of the

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40

Frequences

30

20

10

0

knitting

temporary stitches

permanant stitches

weaving

ironing

cleaning furniture

cleaning surfaces

Fig. 1 Practical skills taught. Source Survey (2020)

Table 1 Factors affecting the level of teaching practical lessons Variable

Frequency

Mean

Median

Remarks/Decision

Competence

19

1.05

1

Agree

Entrepreneurship

19

1.32

1

Agree

Attitude

19

3.32

3

Agree

Equipment

19

2.28

2

Agree

Class sizes

19

2.63

2

Agree

Support

19

2.21

2

Agree

Examinable

19

3.91

4

Disagree

Integration of topics

19

3.91

4

Disagree

Importance

19

3.91

4

Disagree

Time consuming

19

3.95

4

Disagree

Specialist teacher

19

1.95

1

Agree

Source Survey (2020) SCALE: Mean values above Median = agree Mean Values below the Median = disagree

negative attitude of teachers towards Home Economics the respondents agreed with a mean score of 3.32 and a median score of 3 as depicted on Table 1. The observation of this study shows that quite a number of teachers had a negative attitude towards the teaching of Home Economics because most of the teachers were doing the lesson hurriedly without putting much emphasis. The cause of this may be the fact that the teachers may feel that it’s a waste of time.

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A mean score of 2.28 and a median score of 2 indicating that teachers find it difficult to teach the subject due to unavailability of equipment was strongly agreed with by the respondents. Observations from the classrooms show that there were inadequate textbooks for the students. In addition, the lessons were conducted in classrooms without any equipment for Home Economics. Students actually brought their own equipment from home. This reflects that the schools are not providing the equipment because of lack of resources. On the issue of the class sizes the respondents agreed with a mean score of 2.21 and a median score of 2 with the fact that the classes were too big. The observation also showed that the classes were big ranging from 40 to 50. This makes it difficult for the teacher to instruct and monitor students individually because of the big numbers. On the statement that the school head was very supportive towards the teaching of Home Economics the respondents strongly agreed with a mean score of 2.21 and a median score of 2. This could be in relation with the respondents from the various schools. Some did not agree with it. The respondents strongly agreed with a mean score of 1.95 and a median score of 1 with the fact that Home Economics requires a specialist teacher. The reason for this may be in relation with the fact that at teachers’ colleges primary school teachers are trained to teach all the twelve primary school subjects. The respondents disagreed with a number of statements presented to them. On the issue of home economics not an examinable subject the respondents disagreed with a mean score of 3.91 and a median score of 4. Findings from the study also showed that the majority of the teachers rushed through the lessons in order to do something else. This can be like that because teachers dwell more on subjects that are examinable at grade seven so they occupy students with Home Economics while they are busy marking. The respondents strongly disagreed with the fact that it is not necessary to teach Home Economics because of its integration with other subjects. This is because of the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education’s requirement that they are supposed to give at least one written exercise in Home Economics per week. The respondents disagreed with a mean score of 3.91 and a median score of 4 with the statement that Mathematics, English and Shona are more important to teach than Home Economics. The reason for this may be that all primary school subjects on the timetable should be taught according to the time allocated. On the issue that Home Economics is time consuming the respondents disagreed with a mean score of 3.95 and a median score of 4. Findings from the study showed that the practical lessons were done within the stipulated time on the timetable. The reason for this is that the teachers do not take their time when teaching the subject and they give the students the work as home work.

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6 Discussion This section discusses the major research findings on the respondents’ demographic data, level and amount of teaching practical lessons in Home economics and factors that affect the level of teaching practical lessons. The resources in education also include human resources that are Home Economics teachers [19]. The study revealed that whilst all teachers engaged with in this study had experience in the teaching of Home economics at Primary school level, none of them had done Home Economics as their main subject during the preservice training. This compromises the quality of human resources teaching Home Economics. Specialist Home Economics teachers are required in all primary schools so that the teachers will teach the exact content that is required [21]. Subject specialization has been perceived as contributing to quality in education. Uko-Aviomah [24] indicated that students’ poor performance at the end of school year is attributed to factors relating to skill and effectiveness of the teacher. Having a specialist teacher in Home Economics will help the teaching of the subject to be effective. When the classes are too big it will be difficult to demonstrate to the pupils and to monitor the pupils when doing practical skills one by one. Even in schools where there are Home Economics laboratories, the Home Economics laboratories cannot cater for such big numbers. All teachers who participated in this study lacked that Home Economics specialisation. Literature has it that specialization at primary school gives the teacher a strong subject-matter background in a particular subject area that then makes the teacher an expert in that particular subject area [19]. A study by Samkange [21] points out that for the primary school teacher trainee, there has not been much in terms of preparing the teachers for the subject specialization,the curriculum at teachers’ colleges that train primary school teachers remains predominantly generalist. Whilst it may be argued that trainee teachers are required to take up at least one Main Subject that they specialize in. The study also revealed that all the three schools do not have Home Economics laboratories. This observation concurs to literature findings the reveal that there is lack of space and poor provision of standard laboratory and sufficiently equipped laboratory can hamper units and equipment would enhance good effective teaching [1]. Effective teaching of Home Economics is therefore hindered by the absence of Home Economics laboratories [1]. This study noted similar challenges where schools had no Home Economics laboratories and teachers end up not focusing on practical lessons. Like many other primary schools in Zimbabwe, the three primary schools that were the focus of this study do not have Home Economics laboratories. The study noted that the time that is allocated for Home Economics is limited for adequate skill development. The number of lessons is limited in comparison to other subjects, like Mathematics. These are done every day with one double lesson thus making a total of six lessons per week. This is an indication that little value is placed on the subject. The majority of the teachers indicated that their practical lessons were thirty (30) minutes long. This is an indication that they have one practical lesson per week and one theory lesson in order to meet the Director’s circular on written work

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specifications. This could be because of the Director’s Circular No. 36 of [5] that clearly specifies that they should have one written exercise in Home Economics. The teachers have limited time because they have to follow the requirements of the circular. Also, this circular indicates that the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education does not cater for practical lessons because nothing is said concerning the number of practical lessons that should be done. Azubuike [2] argues that self-reliance and income generation activities were areas stressed in Home Economics. The findings show that the teachers also agreed with the assertion that Home Economics provided pupils with life skills such as cooking, washing, sweeping and many other skills. Obanya [17] observes that Home Economics gives more practical skills for everyday life. The findings show that the teachers perceive the subject as very important because it imparts pupils with skills for life and enterprising. The findings revealed that the teachers agreed regarding their attitude towards the subject. The observation conducted in all the three schools showed that quite a number of teachers had a negative attitude towards the subject. This was reflected in the way the teachers were doing the lessons that showed that the teachers did not enjoy teaching the subject. The issue that home economics is not an examinable subject goes along with the attitude of the teachers. Some teachers do not see it necessary to teach the subject because it is not examinable; in other words, the teacher will have negative attitude towards the subject because it is not examinable. The findings show that the teachers agreed that the school heads are very supportive. In support of this Dube [6] in his study showed that the effective teaching of Home Economics calls for maximum support of teachers by heads of schools in the proper teaching of the subject. The head is the key to the effective teaching of the subject. Although the heads are supportive it will be difficult for them to show their full support without the resources. Puyate [20] observes that effective teaching of vocational subjects cannot take place without adequate provision of learning facilities. Big classes are a hindrance because they are difficult to cater for. The teachers disagreed with the fact that teachers do not teach the subject because some of the topics are covered in Science and Social studies. In support of this Nhundu [16] in his study asserts that the issue of integration is out, all the twelve primary school subjects are equally important and each subject should be given the stipulated time for the subject. The teachers also disagreed with the claim that the subject is not important. This clearly shows that the teachers know that if students are taught this subject, they will benefit through the various skills that they learn. The subject is very important because the pupils will acquire skills that they will use for life. The noted the following solutions for enhancing teaching of practical Home Economics lessons: equipment, the subject to be examinable, Home Economics specialist teachers, the subject to be allocated more time and to staff develops the staff. The need for schools to provide enough equipment for Home Economics emerged as one of the solutions for improving teaching practical lessons. Most of the equipment that is used cannot be improvised. If schools do not have enough equipment it will be difficult for the teacher to teach the practical lessons. In support of this Kiadese

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[9] notes that problems such as poor school infrastructure, lack of qualified teachers, poorly equipped workshops and laboratories affect the teaching of prevocational subjects. For the subject to be taught well equipment should be available. The findings showed that there is need to make the subject examinable. If the practical skills are examinable the teachers will be left with no choice except to teach the practical skills. In support of the findings presented in this chapter, Bailey, Curtis and Nunan [3] pointed out that subject specialization improves performance of the teacher, school and pupil. There is need for schools to have Home Economics teachers who have specialized in it because subject specialization gives the teacher a strong grounding in the area of specialization. Such grounding makes the teacher relevant, effective and efficient as the teacher becomes knowledgeable in the subject area and an expert on subject matter. It will be an advantage because they have the know-how of how to teach the skills.

7 Conclusions and Recommendations The most common factors that affect the levels of teaching practical lessons in Home Economics were the unavailability of equipment and the need for specialist teachers. The enrolment of the pupils differs from one school to another with the location of the schools and the classes were big ranging from 40 to 50. This affected the individual monitoring of the pupils as they did practical lessons. A number of teachers had a negative attitude towards the teaching of Home Economics and the majority of the teachers rushed through the lessons in order to do something else. Teachers may feel that it is a waste of time and the teachers dwell more on subjects that are examinable. Teachers prefer to teach subjects, like Mathematics, English and Shona because they are examinable at grade seven. This causes the teachers not to value the subject that is why the teaching of practical lessons is lower. Practical skills were seen as valuable as they helped pupils to be competent and self-reliant through entrepreneurship. As a result, the pupils may contribute towards safe and notorious food to their families and communities through implementing practical lessons. Heads were very supportive of the teaching of Home Economics even though schools faced challenges in provision of infrastructure and equipment. Schools are not providing the equipment because of lack of resources. Solutions suggested for improving the levels of teaching of practical lessons included the need for specialist teachers, provision of all the necessary equipment, making Home Economics examinable and allocation of more time. There was also need to staff develop the teachers in schools on how to teach practical lessons so that they will do it correctly when teaching students. The following recommendations were made: • In order to improve the levels of teaching practical lessons in Home Economics there is need for in-service courses for teachers with focus on the teaching of practical lessons in Home Economics.

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• School heads should closely monitor the teaching of Home Economics in their schools by observing the teaching of Home Economics by teachers. • Efforts should be put in place by the school authorities to provide all the necessary infrastructure and equipment that is required for the smooth teaching of practical lessons in Home Economics. • Teacher—pupil ratio should be reduced for individualized instruction to be possible. • The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education should adjust the policy on the recommended time for practical lessons in Home Economics, by allocating more time for the subject. • Teachers should be provided with adequate equipment for use during Home Economics lessons.

References 1. Afolabi SS, Adeleke JO (2010) Assessment of resources and instructional materials status in the teaching of mathematics in south-western Nigeria. Eur J Sci Res, 43(3):406- 410. https:// www.eurojournals.com/ejsr.htm 2. Azubuike OC (2011) Influential factors affecting the attitude of students towards vocational/technical subjects in secondary schools in south-eastern Nigeria. J Educ Soc Res 1(2):49–56 3. Bailey KM, Curtis A, Nunan D (2001) Pursuing professional development: the self as a source. Heinle & Heinle Publishers, Boston 4. Chanakira EJ (2000) Elements of teacher education and the single teaching service in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe publishing house, Harare 5. Circular (2006) Ministry of education, sports, art and culture (Zimbabwe) Written work specifications Circular No 36 6. Dube H (2004) Dissemination of home economics syllabus in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe Publishing House, Harare 7. Gwarinda TC (2002) The practice of teaching. College Press, Harare 8. Kapfunde CL (2000) Introduction to educational management. Module PGDE305. Zimbabwe Open University, Harare 9. Kiadese AL (2011) An assessment of the teaching effectiveness of prevocational subjects teachers in Ogun State Nigeria. Int J Vocat Tech Educ 3(1):5–8 10. Kibett JK, Kathuri N (2005) Effects of project-based learning on student performance of higher cognitive skills in secondary school agriculture. Zimbabwe J Educ Res 17(1):30–39 11. Manwa L, Motsi E (2010) Role of gender in the teaching and learning of home economics: a case in Masvingo Peri Urban. Zimb J Educ Res 22 ISBN 1013:3445 12. Mapholisa T, Tshabalala T (2012) An investigation into the causes of conflict in Zimbabwean schools: A case study of Khani South Circuit. Nova J Humanit Soc Sci 1(1):1–6 13. Mathwasa J, Sibanda L (2020) Enhancing students’ self-efficacy: implication for high school guidance and counselling educators. In: Taukeni SG (ed) Counseling and therapy. IntechOpen, London 14. Munikwa S (2011) Analysis of the current Zimbabwe’s secondary school two path-way education curriculum. J Innov Res Educ 1(1):21–35. https://www.grpjournal.org 15. Ncube BM, Hlope N (2011) Teaching testing higher cognitive skills: a case of selected high schools in Swaziland. J Agric Soc Sci 7(2):63–68

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16. Nhundu TJ (2000) Headteacher and teacher perspectives of multiple-shift school practices: a zimbabwean experience. Int Stud Educ Admin 28(1):42-56 17. Obanya P (2007) Thinking and talking education. Evans Brothers (Nigeria publishers) Ltd. Ibadan 18. Oloyede AA, Ajimotokan HA, Faruk N (2017) Embracing the future of engineering education in Nigeria: teaching and learning challenges. Niger J Technol 36(4):991–1001 19. Orji ABC (2006) The effect of greeno and polya problem solving models on student’s achievement and interest in physics in senior secondary schools in abuja metropolis of federal capital territory. NASHER J 6(3):149–154 20. Puyate ST (2008) Constraints to the effective implementation of vocational education programme in private sec schools in Port Harcourt local government area. Asia-Pac J Coop Educ 9(2):59–71 21. Samkange W (2015) Subject specialization at primary school: a new development in Zimbabwean education system. Glob J Adv Res 2(5):845–854. ISSN:2394-5788 22. Primary School, Home economics syllabus (2002) Curriculum Development Unit, Harare 23. UN-Habitat (2020) UN-Habitat COVID-19 policy and programme framework. UN-Habitat 24. Uko-Aviomah EE (2005) Evolving a dynamic curriculum for Home Economics in Nigerian schools. In: Oraifo SO, Edozie GC, Ezeh DN (eds) Curriculum issues in contemporary education. Book in Honour of Professor (Mrs) Ebele Maduewesi. DaSylva Influence, Benin-City 25. United Nations (2017) New urban agenda. https://uploads.habitat3.org/hb3/NUA-English.pdf 26. Uwaifo VO, Uwaifo IU (2009) Training technology and vocational education teachers for the new 9–3–4 education system in Nigeria: its problems and prospects. Int NGO J, 4(4):160–166. www.academicjournals.org/INGOJ

Informal Food Spaces: Implications for Public Health Tinashe Bobo, Innocent Chirisa, and Percy Toriro

Abstract The chapter converses on the implications of informal food spaces to public health in urban areas. The study indicated that urban areas are dynamic and fluid due to their ever-changing forms, function and formula. As a result, maintaining formality in such environments has strongly appeared to be a challenge to the urban planning profession. Document analysis was utilised in this study focusing on two major case areas that are; Harare CBD and KwaMereki in Warren Park, Harare. The study identified an increase of vendors and food outlets in the informal food spaces and these pose a threat to public health due to their illegal nature, lack of portable water and sanitation provisions and preparation processes of the foodstuffs. Notable among the findings is that the preparation of foods both onsite and offsite is open to contamination since vendors do not practice safe hygienic food handling. Keywords Urbanity · Spatiality · Food markets · Informality · Policy

1 Introduction The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the challenge of informal food spaces in urban areas and their implications to public health. As urban areas continue to grow and change in form, function and sometimes formula the concept of urban T. Bobo Department of Works, City Planning and Development Division, City of Harare, Harare, Zimbabwe e-mail: [email protected] I. Chirisa (B) Department of Demography Settlement and Development, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe e-mail: [email protected] Department of Urban & Regional Planning, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa P. Toriro Municipal Development Partnership for Eastern and Southern Africa, Harare, Zimbabwe e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 P. Toriro and I. Chirisa (eds.), Environmental Resilience, Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0305-1_12

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informality has presented an unprecedented challenge to urban planners since it works in complete opposite of the formal urban systems that urban planning tries to promote and to maintain. Historically, Urban areas have been imagined as neatly laid out, well planned, sanitised and civilised places of dense human habitation with regulated economic activity. A cross sectional lenses on urban areas in Zimbabwe highlights some of the auspices of formality and well-planned urban spaces and in places where havoc and chaos are the order of the day, it remains a wish or a dream for the urban planning profession. This chapter discusses the nexus between informal food spaces and the implications for public health, mainly for the urban spaces in Zimbabwe. Conceptual Framework Informal food spaces are markets where many actors are not licensed and do not pay tax, such as street foods. In these markets, traditional processing, products and retail prices predominate and they escape effective health and safety regulation. According to Roesel and Grace [20] informal food markets are the most important source of meat, milk and eggs for poor people in Africa and in Asia and will continue to be so for at least the next decade. These informal food spaces are known for selling foods at lower prices and they have other attributes desired by the public, such as food freshness and food taste. One of the major negative characteristics of informal food spaces is that they lack modern infrastructure that can give rise to food safety and hygiene issues. McMahon [14] indicates that to minimise the risk of food-borne disease, appropriate infrastructure and cold chain management are needed, however, these elements are under-developed in most low-income settings. Public health is the science of protecting and improving the health of people and their communities [3]. The health of people and their communities is achieved by promoting health lifestyles, researching disease and injury prevention and detecting, preventing and responding to infectious diseases. The major concern for public health is concerned with protecting the health of entire populations. These populations can be as small as a local neighbourhood, or as big as an entire country or region of the world. According to the Global Health Workforce Alliance [11], Zimbabwe in 2008 had 65% of its health care services were provided by the public sector. However, the severe social and economic challenges since the time have resulted in an unprecedented deterioration of health care infrastructure, loss of experienced health sector personnel and a drastic decline in the quality of health services available for the population. Vending, like any other business in urban areas, is controlled by local authorities through policy, regulations and bylaws. Informal food businesses across urban areas in Zimbabwe are not registered and an example is that of city of Harare that does not allow vending of cooked food. The city of Harare has been known by issuing hawkers licences that included a restriction on the type of food sold and the location where they could be sold. Local authorities use the Public Health act, chapter 15:09 and the Food and Food Standard Act, Chapter 15:04. However, according to Njaya [18], these acts unfortunately did not address the salient aspects of street food vending. Njaya [18] presented that The Public Health Act has origins in colonialism and was designed

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to protect established while subjecting small businesses (mostly owned by blacks) to harassment for failure to meet prescribed standards. On the other hand, the Food and Foods Standards Act was designed with stringent conditions for registration and excluded blacks. Due to such legislative connotations, most informal food spaces especially in big cities, such as Harare, have been established informally and at undesignated sites. One of the most notoriously loved places in Harare being the KwaMereki informal food space. Because of the growth of informal food spaces in urban areas, there has been high concerns from local authorities over the sustainability and safety of the public over street foods. Many local authorities regard such informal food spaces as impediments to urban planning and hazards to public health. In trying to control the sprouting of informal food spaces over the urban horizon, many local authorities. Such as Harare City Council, have engaged into a cat and mouse drama through raids and confiscations of vending foods and cooking utensils. The Zimbabwe republic Police has also joined the raids and confiscations that Njaya [18] argue to be causing riotous situations and loss of property. Njaya [18] gives a narrative of how street vendors shattered the windows of a police post in First Street, Harare after the Police confiscated their wares. These narratives help to highlight how policy, regulations and bylaws interacts with the informal food businesses across the urban areas.

2 Literature Review Food is central to urban health, urban economies and urban form. Roberts [19: 4] argued that “more than with any other of our biological needs, the choices we make around food affect the shape, style, pulse, smell, look, feel, health, economy, street life and infrastructure of the city”. This is a synapsis of the critical with that food is a vital component of the built environment. However, food has been largely absent or left out of urban planning, urban studies and urban policies especially in the developing world and as well the urban space has been absent or left out of food security studies and policy. This chapter, thus aims to bring together the informal food spaces and their systems and public health. The aim is to illustrate the implications of informality in the food sector in urban public health in Zimbabwe. In cases where the state fails to provide adequate services through the formal sector, the urban poor find ways to enhance and secure their livelihoods and to provide themselves and their families necessary nutritional needs through the informal food sector. Experience across the developing world has highlighted the rise of small and unregulated enterprises in food production, transport and marketing in the food security sector [21]. However, these interventions in food security have been tainted development problems across the globe as they swerve away from the formal and cleaner way of providing services. This is not to say informal food sector is all evil but rather, its small enterprises are important sources of income and employment to food sector entrepreneurs.

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From the perspective of the technocrat or rather state actors, the informal food sector is a problem child as it lay beyond the regulatory purvey of the state. This may be through tax evasion, labour regulations and public health, among others. Thus, this chapter regards the informal food spaces in Zimbabwe as a threat to public health and seeks to discuss policy suggestions on how the informal food spaces may be considerate of public health. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) defines the informal food sector to include small manufacturing enterprises and small traders and service providers and legal and illegal activities and a wide array of artisans. In the case of ‘informal food’, FAO limits its definition to specific elements. They classify food production, catering and transport and the retail sale of fresh or prepared products. In terms of character, the informal food sector has no or very limited specialisation; very low capital investment; a combination of production and consumption, absence of accounts and the non-payment of all or some taxation; the possibility of articulating with the formal food sector to satisfy different demands and customer bases; and innovations that are more social than technical [6: 1]. Actors in the Informal Food Spaces According to Njaya [18], informal food spaces include public places including industrial and construction sites, hospitals, schools, sporting stadia, bus termini, shopping and commercial centres, in front of offices and along urban streets. In Zimbabwe, informal food spaces have also graduated to include even the low-density suburbs in big cities, such as Harare, that is an indication of a deepening economic crisis. Aragrande and Argenti [1: 2] provides that food costs are a great concern to urban households who spend 30% more than rural households on food. On the other front, low-income earner spends about 60–80% of their incomes on food. This highlights major urban food security problems that are mainly addressed by several actors, from urban agriculturalists to street vendors, who earn their livelihoods from the profits generated [21]. Urban agriculturalists: these are agents of urban and peri-urban agriculture and their main drivers are for both survival and commercial purposes [8]. Urban and peri-urban agriculture is widely practiced in Africa and it is known for employment creation and food supply to urban residents [8, 24]. However, urban agriculture is also widely illegal and sometimes urban agriculturalists make use of contaminated river water in their agriculture practices such that their products have public health implications as potentially contaminated food products are distributed to markets and consumers. Food supply and distribution: this entails the transfer of food from the producer to the urban consumer. Several activities are involved, such as assembling, handling, processing, packaging, transport, storage, wholesaling and retailing. These activities require supporting services from local authorities, such as the provision of infrastructure including roads, storage facilities and public markets; setting of market rules and regulations; and control of food quality. However, these services are close to nonexistent for the informal food sector in Zimbabwe. This in the informal food sector has an implication to public health. Supply and distribution of food in the informal sector is also done through non-motorised vehicles, such as bicycles, manual carts

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and rickshaws and animal-driven carts. According to Simon [21], for short distances, porterage (walking) is common. There are also various forms of motorised taxis and public transport used to carry goods to various informal food spaces especially in the urban areas. Street vendors: these are visible actors in the informal food spaces. These mainly provoke negative responses from local authorities and often established off-street informal businesses resent them for the competition they provide. They are also accused of evading taxes and providing low-quality goods while creating urban blight, health and safety risks, congestion by setting up in high traffic urban locations. Street vendors also include fixed kiosks, mobile stands, vendors who sell from vehicles (carts, bicycles, trucks etc.), vendors who sell from plastic or cloth set out on the street and street hawkers. These may be individuals, members of families working together or disguised workers of established businesses reaching out to new markets. Small restaurants and canteens: these are home based caterers who cook food at home and then serve the finished products as caterers. In many urban areas, these provide boxed lunches to workers in office buildings. There are also small restaurants that often not registered with local government and do not pay taxes.

3 Emerging Issues Informal food spaces in Zimbabwe are largely not regulated and usually they are war zones between vendors and local authorities. In that regard, there are more health and safety issues that emerge out of the operations of informal food enterprises. One outstanding risk is of bacteriological contamination during processing, transport and marketing of food. A good example is that of wholesale and retail markets that mostly do not have adequate infrastructure, including waste disposal and water supply. Also, vendors in Zimbabwe do not have access to proper storage facilities and considering current electricity woes many vendors do not have access to electricity and refrigeration. Even though home catering is one of the options in the informal food sector, it does not answer to storage issues as urban housing in Zimbabwe is characterised with poor sanitation and access to water and electricity. Most informal food spaces do not have access to basic sanitation facilities and as such this poses a public health hazard. According to Tinker [22: 65], food sold on the street or in markets is generally safe if consumed shortly after cooking. Food contamination comes largely from unclean hands and plates and from dust. FAO [7] indicates that studies in Latin America highlights that health risks are incurred if food is prepared without access to clean water, if minimal practices of hygiene and adequate food preparation are not respected, if raw foods are not carefully selected and if environmental contamination is not taken into consideration. These concerns; however, remain critical in Zimbabwe’s informal food spaces and they have been blamed for health-related disaster that have befallen the nation in recent years, such as cholera and typhoid.

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Concerns of cleanliness and freshness often discourage some people in Zimbabwe’s urban areas from eating street food. Street food is not only served to local Zimbabweans but also to tourists from other countries, hence, the increasing pace of globalisation and tourism has meant that food safety has become one of the major concerns of public health [9, 15]. A study carried out in Burkina Faso, Ouagadougou proved that street food vendors did not respect hygienic practices [26]. In the same manner, another study in Ghana that aimed at evaluating the role of street food vendors in the transmission of diarrhoeal pathogens showed that in 35% of the vending sites, food was exposed to flies while 17.1% of the vendors handled food at ground level. Considering these public health concerns some countries and cities have taken the policy way of regulating proponents of informal food production. For example, in Mumbai, India, the Food Safety Act, 2011 requires hawkers, food vendors including vegetable and fruit vendors to follow basic hygiene rules, such as wearing an apron and gloves and using clean utensils and portable water. There are also other effective ways of enhancing food safety of street foods through mystery shopping programmes, through training and rewarding programmes to vendors, through regulatory governing and membership management programmes, or through technical testing programs. The issues raised in this chapter provide an important aspect of sustainability which deals with the wellbeing of the people. This is one of the most important dimensions of the New Urban Agenda which is defined by the United Nations [25] as a shared vision for a better and more sustainable future. Section 13 of the New Urban Agenda highlights that cities and human settlements should have “universal access to safe and affordable drinking water and sanitation, and equal access for all to public goods and quality services in areas such as food security and nutrition, health, education, infrastructure, mobility and transportation, energy, air quality and livelihoods”. Focus of this chapter is on food security, nutrition and good quality services in obtaining the same which is discussed in the context of informal food spaces and implications for public health. Although there is realisation of an improved food supply in urban areas, there is the challenge of urban informality which has resulted in the rise of informal food spaces in urban areas. Urban informality entails the preparation of food in informal food markets where many if not all of the actors are not licensed implying lack of adherence to hygienic and safe food handling and preparation procedures and processes. The concept of sustainability is threatened due to the risks of food-borne diseases which is prevalent in informal food spaces. Public health thus an important aspect of this paper as it tries to protect the health of entire populations. In this regard, it is important to note that the New Urban Agenda plays a pivotal role in influencing sustainable development of cities and human settlements. The New Urban Agenda emphasises on food security in cities and human settlements and the three main dimensions of food security are availability of sufficient quantities of food of appropriate quality, access by households and individuals to adequate resources to acquire appropriate foods for a nutritious diet and utilisation of food through adequate diet, water, sanitation and health care. These dimensions are critical in making sure that sustainability is achieved in cities and human settlements in light of food security. However, the rise of urban informality in many African

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cities has affected the achievement of sustainable development since informal food spaces have proved more of risk food spaces where food-borne diseases are prevalent due to unsafe and unhygienic food handling and preparation processes. The New Urban Agenda thus provides an illumination of ideas that can benefit the sustainable development of cities and human settlements through facilitating the production, storage, transport and marketing of food to consumers in adequate and affordable ways in order to reduce food losses and prevent and reuse food waste. This paper maintains that the New Urban Agenda is useful and came in the right time as this is the era of rapid urbanisation, informality and persistently high levels of malnutrition and other food related challenges. Evidence from some cities in the world shows growing concerns and dimensions over urban food security ranging from lack of food availability, access and food related risks. The COVID-19 pandemic has spread rapidly and extensively around the world since late 2019 and has had profound implications for food security and nutrition. The crisis has affected food systems and threatened people’s access to food via multiple dynamics HLPE [12]. Food supply chains in urban areas have been affected especially in the wake of lockdowns and major economic slowdowns. The crisis has caused lower incomes and higher prices of some goods, putting food out of reach for many, and undermining the right to food and stalling efforts to meet Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2. The effects of COVID-19 can be discussed through the dimensions of food security such as food availability, access, stability and utilisation [12]. Availability speaks to the production and stocking of food ranging from grains to horticultural products. Scholars such as HLPE [12] maintains that world grain stocks may shift over time due to the effects of COVID-19 and also grain production especially in countries that rely much on labour will be affected thereby impinging on grain yields and food security in that aspect. On the other hand, the supply chains for horticulture, dairy and meatpacking remain highly vulnerable to impacts of COVID-19 especially in high labour-intensive regions, susceptibility to food worker illness and corporate concentration leading to larger farms and processing facilities where disease outbreaks may spread rapidly. The impacts of COVID-19 are not only limited to supply chains of foodstuffs but also of agricultural inputs. Access to food facilities has been the most affected dimension of food security by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to HLPE [12], the global economic recession triggered by lockdowns has had a very negative impact on people’s ability to access food. People both from the urban and rural spheres have devised coping strategies of selling and bringing their products to the markets but these continue to be affected and Gerard et al. [10] provides that developing countries have limited capacity to provide extensive social safety nets. Poor urban households thus are forced to live on tight budgets with little or no discretionary spending. So, in the absence of social safety nets, spending on food declined as incomes declined during the COVID-19 pandemic. In countries such as Zimbabwe, the majority of urban residents derive their livelihoods from the informal sector which does not thrive in times of lockdowns hence this poses a major threat to income generation to support spending on foodstuffs.

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Another important aspect or dimension of food security is utilisation which speaks to the ability of people to have a good nutrition which is essential for supporting their immune systems and reducing the risk of infections. Due to the pandemic, most people’s ability to access food has been diminished and this has a negative impact on their ability to afford a healthy diet [5]. This effect of the pandemic is largely being felt in the low- and medium-income countries where people typically spend a higher proportion of their income on food compared to people in high income countries. Another biggest challenge in the respect of utilisation deals with the access to clean water and safe sanitation which is essential for good hygiene and safe food preparation, both vital for ensuring good nutrition. HLPE [12] argues that COVID-19 has widened inequalities with respect to access to these vital services, thus affecting nutrition while at the same time increasing disease risk. The last of the dimensions of food security to be discussed in this chapter is stability. This entails the disruptions to food supply chains to global food supply and access [2]. Developing countries which mainly rely on food imports have been affected negatively due to other countries export restrictions on staples like wheat and rice. These export restrictions have led to higher prices in some instances for these crops compared to other foods. HLPE [12] argues that the upward pressure on food prices in some local contexts also affects food system stability and ongoing uncertainty which has contributed to these trends by affecting currency values and presents an ongoing risk to stability in global food markets. UNCTAD [23] also argues that uncertainty over the evolution of the pandemic and of restrictive measures also influences the ability and willingness of people and firms to invest in the agri-food sector. Case Studies in Harare

3.1 KwaMereki KwaMereki is a shopping centre in Warren Park D, that is a high-density suburb in Harare, the capital city of Zimbabwe. Warren Park was one of the suburbs that were established before the country’s independence [13]. KwaMereki shopping centre comprises of retail shops, butcheries and bottle stores. Vendors erected stalls on the open space in front of the shops and a variety of food is prepared and sold. According to Mapingure et al. [13], Usually food is prepared by vendors and they sell to visitors or the visitors buy raw food and request vendors to prepare for them. Food vending at KwaMereki is taking place at an undesignated site that was only designated as an afterthought. Although so popular and viable, KwaMereki suffered the fatality of local authority powers in 2012 as it was closed together with other informal food spaces in the country. The informal food spaces were/are regarded as a health risk because they are generally unregulated and are associated with poor hygienic practices. A study done by Mapingure et al. [13] indicated a poor rating of KwaMereki’s general outlook because of the poor structures from that vendors

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well their food and the absence of adequate waste disposal systems, that result in littering of the place. The outlook of the informal food space was described as poor and running water was not readily available. Mapingure et al. [13] indicated also that toilets and washing facilities at the place are inadequate and the washing of hands, utensils and dishes is often done in buckets and bowls. In the research, both the vendors and the patrons concurred on the need to put adequate running water taps. Food is usually prepared in conditions that are unsafe, due to limited access to safe water and other important services. However, KwaMereki was reopened after a public outcry mainly from vendors who had lost their source of livelihood and the public who had enjoyed the variety of food served at KwaMereki.

3.2 Harare CBD The central business district for the largest city in Zimbabwe is regarded as the centre for commercial activities, such as banking and finance. Also, city of Harare is comprised of core or major streets and public buildings. These spaces provide a great base for vibrant commercial and administrative activities and a vibrant and growing informal sector supporting the informal food businesses. The Harare CBD is largely delineated using four roads that are Rotten row street, Josiah Tongogara, charter road and fourth street. This delineation is based on high commercial central activities that are demarcated above. Dickson [4] provides that the city’s old systems of organisation of proper sites for vending are exhibiting failure accounting rampant vending in the financial district and the transitional zone. Most vendors in Harare CBD are involved in vegetable selling that involves tomatoes and fruits, such as apples and mangoes. These fruits and vegetables are hardly covered for hygienic purposes with threaten the health of those who buy as flies taint them with micro bacteria. Dickson [4] also argues that the vending environment in these informal food spaces is not conducive for public health as many do their business close to decomposing garbage for example in the transitional zone in Chinhoyi street at Copacabana where much garbage and litter is found due to the area’s popularity. The informal food spaces in Harare CBD also include rampant food outlets and open-air butcheries that have become a threat on public health considering health and hygienic incompetence. According to Dickson [4], the central business district and the inner-city are filled with non-hygienic food outlets that are only aimed at gaining profit without the recognisance and prioritisation of the transitional zone around the CBD for example in the downtown when taking the Chitungwiza and Mbare routes that are relatively situated at areas close to uncollected waste where many flies are found. Due to the informal nature of these informal food spaces, the quality of these food outlets is rarely assessed by the council in conjunction with the public health board that brings a threat to the general consumers. The threat posed by informal foods in the Harare CBD is also expounded by the shortage of public toilets in the city centre and this has become an alarming issue in terms of public health threats. According to Dickson [4], the deliberating public

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service in in Harare is contributing towards the discoloration of the environment by human waste. Central business districts and transitional zones are primarily characterised by public services, such as toilets, to serve the interests of people who make contact with it. To promote public health in urban areas, the availability of public toilets is very essential in the preservation of human health and the environment. Harare CBD has a few toilets that are used by the public that are less than 5 outfitting thousands of people. Public toilets have also been converted to pay toilets that also jeopardises the right to public health for those who cannot afford to pay for the toilets every time they want to use them. In such cases vendors and other people end up contaminating the environment and unclean environments are a big threat to public health that may cause problems, such as diseases.

4 Lessons Learnt Informal food spaces are illegal in nature; they contravene urban local authorities’ bylaws that deal with hawking and public health. However, informal food businesses have grown so rampantly in the past in cities, such as Harare, where mostly municipal personnel collide with the informal business people daily. From the synthesis above, there are several things learnt that connects informal food spaces and public health concerns in Zimbabwe. These include; food storage, water sources, waste disposal, sanitary conditions and personal hygiene. In terms of food storage, informal business people sometimes transport raw food and sometimes cooked food to and from home using public transport or push carts and sometimes own transport for those who own cars. Such transportation facilities are prone to food contamination and poisoning that raises public health concerns. Also, in their day to day operations, there are no modern hot holding facilities in informal food spaces and instead food, such as sadza and meat, are usually left in pots on firewood braziers or braai stands. Again, these facilities are not safe in terms of public health. Very few informal businesses make use of refrigeration facilities such that cold food is stored at ambient temperature and sometimes in cooler boxes stacked with ice. Portable water has been highlighted also as a major input into informal food preparation processes. However, its availability is limited or not even available in most instances. Most informal food spaces lack portable water and instead portable water is conveyed to stalls in containers making the quantities inadequate for effective washing and disinfecting of utensils. In most instances water is used again and again without being changed in bowls. This leaves the public in a public health quandary. In that same manner, waste disposal is also a major challenge in the informal business spaces as most consumers deposit waste from the vended foods at the service sites sometimes due to failure of vendors to provide refuse bins and due to a lost sense of a clean environment. Failure to remove litter in many urban informal food spaces has been evidenced by unpleasant conditions and attracted rodents and insects. These rodents and insects can spread diseases that is a major public health concern especially in the densely populated urban areas.

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Sanitation is a key health aspect that if ignored in urban spaces may pose public health threats. Most informal food spaces in urban areas, such as Harare, are generally filthy, dusty and smoky. Njaya [18] argued that inconvenient and unhygienic places were the major infrastructural problems observed in vending sites in most urban areas in Zimbabwe. Njaya [18] further presented that cooking areas were often situated near rubbish dumps, skip bins or public toilets exposing both the vendors and consumers to food contamination. Usually public toilets in Zimbabwe’s urban areas are not in working order. So, it remains a challenge, as proper structural requirements, sanitary facilities, waste handling and general hygiene for preparing and handling food. Again, vendors do not prioritise protective clothing, such as chef’s hats or head nets and gloves, that poses a health hazard to the public. Informal food spaces have through time been blamed for the rise of water borne diseases in urban areas in Zimbabwe. An example is that of typhoid outbreaks in bigger cities, such as Harare. Preliminary investigations in 2017 in Harare highlighted that the key drivers of typhoid and any other water borne diseases were issues related to; personal hygiene, unregulated vending of foodstuffs, such as vegetables, meat, fish (cooked and uncooked) and inadequate water supplies. This preliminary investigation came through after Harare had been gripped by a typhoid outbreak in 2017 Musvanhiri [16]. Talking about the matter the then Acting Town Clerk, Josephine Ncube said circumstances on the ground have forced the local authority to take drastic measures to contain the spread of the disease. A 48-h ultimatum to food vendors operating within the Harare metropolitan area to cease operations forthwith was given and pushcarts used in the Central Business District were to be impounded during the exercise. Impounded fruits, meat, maize, fish and vegetables were to be destroyed. This action in the informal food spaces was taken with the interests of the majority at heart Musvanhiri [16]. As indicated above the major risks associated with informal food businesses in the urban areas are to do with the ingestion of contaminated food stuffs from the streets. However, according to Dickson [4] informal food spaces also poses health related threats to the public due to irresponsible littering that blocks drainage systems especially in the city centres. The blockage of drainage systems according to Dickson [4] brings chaotic situations of flash flooding in the rainy season where rotten vegetables, leftover food stuffs and plastics contaminate the water. This is a threat on public health. Improper protection of feet and legs can exacerbate micro infections that cause diseases, such as cholera and diarrhoea, when the public contacts the contaminated flash floods that are emanating from poor drainage systems.

5 Discussion Informal food spaces fit into the broad spectrum of the informal sector. These informal food spaces include, among others, business operations in public spaces particularly in the cities and towns. These foods are minimally processed food sold for immediate consumption and it is commonly known as ready-to-eat food or drink. In most cases,

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these foods are prepared in the informal food spaces from that they are sold and consumed and sometimes they are prepared at home. The major issue outlined above concerning the preparation of food in informal food spaces is that the transportation of these foods and the onsite preparation is open to contamination since vendors do not practice safe hygienic food handling that poses a public health threat. Accordingly, this threat is one not to be undermined since street food is consumed by over 2.5 billion people every day across the globe [9]. Also, Muzaffar et al. [17] indicated that street foods provide a source of affordable nutrients to most of the people especially the low-income group in the developing countries. The public in urban areas face a surfeit of problems in urban areas and one of the naughty problems is diseases outbreaks due to ingestion of contaminated food as well and unsafe informal food business practices. There are however, concerns over the cleanliness and freshness of food produced in the informal food spaces. These concerns somehow discourage some people from eating street food. But, the rise of globalisation and urban tourism has meant that governments and local authorities should focus more on regulating informal food spaces to increase the safety of street food. This is essential in supporting and achieving the key tenets of the New Urban Agenda which many cities are proponents of. The New Urban Agenda specifies in its dictates the importance of having a shared vision of member countries cities of a universal access to safe and affordable drinking water and sanitation and quality services in areas like food security and nutrition and health. Due to such provisions it has become essential for governments across the world to emphasise on food security in cities and human settlements through the three main dimensions of food security which are food availability, access and utilisation of food through adequate diet, water, sanitation and healthcare. Although being an important aspect of governance across the world, food security has been hampered by COVID-19 pandemic which spread rapidly and extensively around the world since late 2019. The pandemic has had a major blow on food security mainly on food access. This has been a result of widespread lockdowns and major economic slowdowns across the globe. Food utilisation has also been disturbed especially looking at the ability of people during the COVID-19 pandemic to obtain or have a good nutrition which is essential in supporting their immune systems and reducing the risks of infections. The other dimension of food security impinged in stability which has seen major disruptions to food supply chains to global food supply and access. All these have affected the informal food industry in the developing world.

6 Conclusion and Options for Future Direction The informal sector has deepened its roots in the Zimbabwe’s economy. This has also seen the proliferation of the informal food businesses all over Zimbabwe especially in the urban areas. Although being praised for providing cheap nutritious food to the low-income people and the Zimbabwe’s traditional taste for tourists and visitors, the

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informal foods have been blamed for placing the public at risk. The chapter had a general orientation towards Zimbabwe’s urban areas. The chapter has identified that there is an increase of vendors and food outlets in the informal food spaces in urban areas. Public health is at stack as most of these activities are done at unhygienic sites and they are not even licensed by local authorities. Informal food spaces do not have ablution facilities and poor waste management and this prompts low hygienic ways of preparing and handling food. There have been disease outbreaks that have been blamed upon the informal food businesses and this challenge requires local authorities and other interested stakeholders to labour effectively for the betterment of the public. In light of the foregoing observations, the following are recommended: • Central and municipal governments in Zimbabwe should recognise that citizens have the right to carry out trade or business in urban areas, hence, they should assist the citizens in regularising their informal food businesses. This may be necessitated by capacity building of departments responsible for regulating land use planning and public health or the establishment of departments or sections to deal with food sector actors. • City/urban planning should include space for various informal food sector actors, including such spaces as parking for informal food transport providers and space for food vendors. This should be a participatory process in which the actors have a voice in the policies that concern them. • Local authorities and informal food actor associations should define where informal food sector activities can be carried out. These should be profitable locations and to further encourage vendors to use these areas, customised facilities, such as access to clean water and ablution facilities, should be provided. • Local authorities and central governments and other stakeholders should invest in the infrastructure needed for actors in food supply and distribution. This includes infrastructure for packaging, transport, storage and marketing. These will help in promoting food transportation and preparation safety that is important for informal foods. • Local authorities, central government and other appropriate organisations should ensure that quality control of food is conducted at appropriate local levels, such as wards and districts levels. This will ensure the safety of the public.

References 1. Aragrande M, Argenti O (2001) Studying food supply and distribution systems to cities in developing countries and countries in transition. Food into cities collection, DT/36-01E. FAO, Rome 2. Béné C (2020) Resilience of local food systems and links to food security—a review of some important concepts in the context of COVID-19 and other shocks. Food Secur 12:805–822 3. CDC Foundation (2020) What is public health? 4. Dickson M (2018) Threats and problems on public health: the case of Zimbabwe’s Harare CBD and the Inner-city. Int J Pub Health Safe 3:168

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5. FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, WHO (2020) The state of food security and nutrition in the world 2020. Transforming food systems for affordable healthy diets. Rome, FAO (also available at https://doi.org/10.4060/ca9692en) 6. FAO (2014) The water-energy-food nexus: a new approach in support of food security and sustainable agriculture. FAO, Rome 7. FAO (1996) Estrategias para el mejoramiento de la calidad de los alimentos callejeros en América Latina y el Caribe. Alimentos de Ventas Callejeras. FAO, Roma. http://www.fao.org/ documents/show_cdr.asp?url_file=/DOCREP/W3699T/w3699t00.htm 8. FAO (2005) La Situation Mondiale de l’Alimentation et de l’Agriculture (SOFA). Le commerce agricole et la pauvreté: le commerce peut-il être au service des pauvres? Collection FAO: Agriculture - 36. Rome 9. FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation) (2007) School kids and street food. Spotlight Magazine, Agriculture and Consumer Protection Department, United Nations. http://www.fao.org/ AG/magazine/0702sp1.htm 10. Gerard F, Imbert C, Orkin K (2020) Social protection response to the COVID-19 crisis: options for developing countries. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, August 29, 2020, graa026. https:// doi.org/10.1093/oxrep/graa026 11. Global Health Workforce Alliance (2020) Health workers for all and all for health workers 12. HLPE (2020) Impacts of COVID-19 on food security and nutrition: developing effective policy responses to address the hunger and malnutrition pandemic. Rome. https://doi.org/10.4060/cb1 000en 13. Mapingure C, Kazembe C, Mazibeli T, Mamimine P, Lungu E (2015) Determinants of street food consumption in low-income residential suburbs: the perspectives of Patrons of KwaMereki in Harare, Zimbabwe. IOSR J Humanit Soc Sci (IOSR-JHSS) 20(4), Ver. III (Apr. 2015):78–83 e-ISSN: 2279-0837, p-ISSN: 2279-0845 14. McMahon D (2020) The urban nutrition agenda: informal food markets—opportunity or problem? Global sector coordinator—food and nutrition security 15. Mukhola MS (2007) Guidelines for an environmental education training programme for street food vendors in Polokwane City. http://etd.rau.ac.za/theses/submitted/etd-03132007-40510/ restricted/last.pdf, unpublished thesis 16. Musvanhiri P (2017) Zimbabwe: street food vendors banned over typhoid, cholera fears. https:// p.dw.com/p/2VgZN 17. Muzaffar AT, Huq I, Mallik BA (2009) Entrepreneurs of the streets: an analytical work on the street food vendors of Dhaka City. Int J Bus Manage 4(2):80–88 18. Njaya T (2014) Nature, operations and socio-economic features of street food entrepreneurs of Harare, Zimbabwe. IOSR J Humanit Soc Sci (IOSR-JHSS) 19(4), Ver. III, 49–58 19. Roberts W (2001) The way to a city’s heart is through its stomach: putting food security on the urban planning menu. Toronto Food Policy Council, Crackerbarrel Philosophy Series. Available online http://www.toronto.ca/health/tfpc_hs_report.pdf 20. Roesel K, Grace D (2015) Food safety and informal markets: animal products in sub-Saharan Africa. Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group 21. Simon S (2006) Discussion overview paper on the informal food sector. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Ottawa, Canada 22. Tinker I (1987) Street foods: testing assumptions about informal sector activity by women and men. Current Sociol 35(3):i–110 23. UNCTAD (2020) World investment report 2020: international production beyond the pandemic. Geneva, UN. https://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/wir2020_en.pdf 24. UNDP (1996) Urban agriculture: food, jobs and sustainable cities. Publication for Habitat II, vol 1. UNDP, New York 25. United Nations (2017) New urban agenda. Habitat III, Quito 17–20 October 2016 26. World Health Organisation (WHO) (2006) Food safety; five keys to safer food program. Available online http://www.who.int/foodsafety/areas_work/food-hygiene/5keys/en/

The Future of Food, the City and Environment: Case for Resilience in Zimbabwe Tinashe Kanonhuwa, Percy Toriro, and Innocent Chirisa

Abstract In the wake of climate change and unfavourable urban policies, the future of effective food provision to Zimbabwe’s urban inhabitants remains blinkered. The chapter focuses on the need to promote sustainable urban agriculture as one of the major sources of livelihood for women and children especially. Urban Agriculture is noted to improve on food security and livelihoods especially on the poorer portion of the population. It also recommends on the need to reduce on food wastages and at the same time, promote food recycling as an effective way to guard against hunger. Urban local farming and the saving of the available food, and prevention of food wastes would play a positive role in ensuring that, the country achieves part of its Sustainable Development Goals of 2030 that aim to eliminate hunger and the New Urban Agenda that strives to achieve nutrition and food security in cities. The chapter is heavily thrusted on the issue of Urban Agriculture as an effective source of food security in Zimbabwe’s urban environment, especially in a world threatened by the COVID-19 pandemic, and it recommends the need for stern policy measures as regards to the practice of urban agriculture in order to ensure food security in urban areas. This would, in turn, prevent over-reliance on donors, as a way to get Zimbabwe back on its feet as the ‘once’ bread basket of Africa. Keywords Future · Environmental management · Food security · New Urban Agenda · Urban resilience · Policy

T. Kanonhuwa · I. Chirisa (B) Department of Demography Settlement and Development, University of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe P. Toriro Municipal Development Partnership for Eastern and Southern Africa, Harare, Zimbabwe I. Chirisa Department of Urban & Regional Planning, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 P. Toriro and I. Chirisa (eds.), Environmental Resilience, Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-0305-1_13

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1 Introduction Food is a necessity and a right [6]. In a quest to ensure adequate provision of food to the urban population, local authorities ought to adequately plan for it. This would entail ensuring the basic provisions to facilitate effective practice of food security through urban agriculture, its effective processing, consumption and its recycling and re-use if possible. Zimbabwe’s household food insecurity dates back to the 1990s and 2000s after the introduction of policies, such as the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme followed by the Fast-Track Land Resettlement Programme and Operation Murambatsvina/Restore Order [24]. Such programmes resulted in failure of the once ‘bread basket of Africa’ to feed its population. Food security has further been threatened by the existence of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic in the Zimbabwean landscape. The COVID-19 pandemic was discovered in Wuhan, China in 2019 [12]. It is highly contagious and can be passed on from one person to the other through coughing and, or sneezing, and due to the unavailability of drugs to treat it, countries have locked their borders and have encouraged citizens to practise social distancing and many businesses have closed down in trying to control the spread of the pandemic [8, 13, 21]. With this in mind, Urban Agriculture becomes one of the options to safeguard food security in the country. Urban Agriculture (UA) forms an important component in safeguarding the lives of the urban inhabitants to a larger extent. Urban agriculture ranges from subsistence production to commercial agriculture and is defined as, the growing of plants and raising of poultry for food and other uses within and around cities and towns (Van Veenhuizen 2006 in [17]). UA may also be on-plot or off-plot [16]. In this regard, urban agriculture can be used as a way to satisfy the needs of a diverse urban population as it may simply be used as a livelihood survival strategy at household level, to generating income at national level. Food security at household level remains a challenge in Zimbabwe’s urban environments due to unclear legislation that supports urban agriculture in the country’s urban environments. Apart from UA, urban areas must also reduce food waste in order to promote cleaner city environments and feed part of its population in order to enhance part of the Sustainable Development Goals that aim to promote zero hunger by 2030. Food security remains an important feature to the effective functioning of the urban system; hence, the need to seriously consider UA and options for food recycling and reuse.

2 Literature Review Globally, the world population is increasing at a faster rate as compared to rural populations. It is projected that, by 2050, global urban population would have surpassed the 6 billion mark, with more urban growth being projected in the low to middle income countries (UN 2015 in [4]). It is further acknowledged that, the urban landscape now suffers from increased urban growth, increased poverty and climate change,

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hence, the need for increased attention on how cities and their inhabitants are fed [3]. This calls for the need to ensure that urban environments also contribute to food security through food production, processing and reduction in food wastages. FAO [4] stresses that increased urbanisation trends have an impact on food consumption, with higher income earners demanding more processed foods, fruits and vegetables as part of their diet. This would entail increased employment in the food processing industry and vending, whilst less people are demanded in urban agriculture. The need to adequately provide for the population in order to eliminate hunger and promote the health and wellbeing of the population forms part of the Sustainable Development Goals. In this regard, urban environments must become self-sustaining by producing enough to feed its population and in other cases, enough to export as well. Activities, such as UA, and the processing of food later to be sold in wholesale and retail outlets, would not only generate income through employment creation for the locals, but also improve the people’s standards of living. UA is a major contributor of food in the urban landscape, particularly the developing world. Figure 1 is a representation of investments in agriculture by region.

Fig. 1 Agricultural investment orientation ratio by region (1990–2015). Source FAO (2016a) in FAO [4]

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It is noted that, generally, high-income countries that are mostly termed, the developed world, have a greater investment ratio greater than 1, whilst Sub-Saharan Africa has that which is below 0.4. Pedzisai et al. [20] explains that, some of the benefits of UA include food security, poverty reduction, economic development, cost effective waste management and it also enhance the livelihoods of women and children. In ensuring and promoting food security in settlements, the United Nations also adopted the New Urban Agenda in October 2016, and with this, cities and human settlements are expected to provide nutritious, adequate food to its populace and waste disposal facilities, whilst making sure that, these respond well to the needs of the needs and rights of the youth, children and women [30]. In this case, the needs of everyone, especially the vulnerable are all taken into consideration. In ensuring this, the United Nations aims at supporting the implementation of development policies and plans, and support the interaction and cooperation of cities (in their various sizes) in enhancing food security and nutrition systems, and promote integration of food security and nutritional needs of urbanites, particularly the poor [30]. In this case, segregation of the poor is avoided and the food security concerns for many is addressed. Apart from supporting urban livelihoods, UA may also be used as a way to promote economic development through the realisation of profits through selling and exporting excess farm produce. Figure 2 shows more issues and benefits that revolve around UA. It is noted that UA does contain many benefits and implications. Among the implications is the issue of consumption or production. This may touch on the need to reduce food waste in the production and processing of horticultural produce and rearing of farm animals, such as chickens. Oelofse and Nahman [19] emphasises

Fig. 2 Conceptual framework for urban agriculture. Source Pedzisai et al. [20]

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Fig. 3 De Schilde rooftop farm in The Hague. Source Dubbeling [3]

that, between half to a third of the food produced globally is wasted. There is need to save on food as it may help in feeding the needy especially in the current urban environment that is sometimes characterised by much uncertainty in the form of droughts and floods. Due to competing land uses, UA in some instances, have received less attention. Much attention has been directed to more pressing issues, such as the need to accommodate the ever-increasing population in both the developed and the developing worlds. This has resulted in innovativeness in the developed world. Cities that have adopted the use of vertical gardens include Chicago in the United States of America, the Hague in Netherlands, with Japan owning over 350 vertical gardens that they call plant factories [3]. Figure 3 is a representation of De Schilde Roof Top garden in the Hague. The practice of vertical gardening would facilitate maximum use of space and it may also facilitate/promote mixed use developments. The Schilde vertical farm is located at the roof top of once, a previously industrial production facility, it opened in 2006 and it aims to produce 50 tonnes of vegetables per year on 1500 m2 and 20 tonnes of fish [3]. This shows a constant supply of horticultural products and these would improve on the diet of the locals and at the same time generate an income. Mixed use developments would, in turn, promote property values. It is however, argued that vertical gardens are cost intensive and this may result in expensive products. In preventing food waste in the production, processing and consumption of farm produce, there is need for innovativeness to make sure that, part of the food waste produced, is reproduced into organic manure that may later be used in the gardens. In Japan for instance, the food recycling law of 2001 requires the reproduction of

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food waste into animal feed and compost [23]. This would not only reduce costs of buying animal food, but also help improve on the country’s yield due to improved soil fertility. The African countries also appreciate urban agriculture as an urban livelihood strategy. This has seen countries, such as Cameroon, Malawi and Zimbabwe, practising urban agriculture in their urban landscapes. Ignowski [9] acknowledges that food shortages and lack of safe food remains a major global problem. In Cameroon, the poor people of Yaonde urban area consume vegetables produced in the valleys surrounding the city [20]. This indicates the great role played by UA in feeding the urban poor. It is also acknowledged that, animal farming produces 20,000 tonnes of manure yearly, that covers about two thirds of the fertilisers used in the farms, thereby reducing the use of inorganic fertilisers [20]. The use of organic fertilisers would, in turn, reduce dangers caused by the washing away of inorganic fertilisers, such as the siltation of local rivers and negative effects, such as eutrophication of rivers. In Zambia, 41% of households in urban and peri-urban areas is involved in horticultural activities, whilst, 20% is involved in livestock keeping [10]. This indicates that a significant proportion of households are into subsistence farming for their livelihood. Faced with the recent COVID-19 pandemic which has affected many countries, resulting in closed borders and less transactions between various countries, the practice of UA at the international, regional and local levels may prove beneficial to the locals. By enforcing the closing of boarders, some countries have been left with limited options than to produce locally as opposed to importing in order to feed its population. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased vulnerability of the poor especially those who rely on the informal sector as it became difficult to work from home, and these have been affected as they lack financial capacity to stock up food in advance [29], as a result, urban expenditure and consumption as regards to spending on food, manufactured goods and transport (among others) is likely to experience a sharp fall as a result of the COVID-19 related lockdowns and restrictions [27]. In order to reduce vulnerability of the poor and the general populace, government support and that of non-governmental organisations including the United Nations becomes essential. UA may therefore be used as a tool for finding local solutions to feeding nations during difficult times. However, some African countries have been argued not to take UA seriously. African countries do not take UA seriously. This may be as a result of other needs that may be put on top of the urban agenda, such as the increased need for housing in a world faced with increased urbanisation trends. In Malawi’s Mzuzu city zoning codes do not include provision for UA [22]. This shows a lack of seriousness about UA in Malawi’s urban areas hence, the realisation of minimal or no gains from UA as a source of livelihood and food security for the urban population especially the disadvantaged. It is acknowledged that, there is lack of institutional support and clear policy framework and the marginalisation of UA in African countries [22]. This indicates that UA is not considered a priority by governments as a positive factor to the development of the nation.

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Due to low productivity, declining remittances, food price hikes, liquidity challenges, weather uncertainties and inadequate employment opportunities, above 63% of the population lives below the poverty datum line whilst 16% lives in abject poverty [31]. In this regard, the Government of Zimbabwe is faced with challenges on how to improve the livelihoods of the population. The ability of government to cut down on poverty levels would help achieve some of the global objectives that aim at eliminating hunger. The history of food in urban environments dates back to as early as 1980s and early 90 s where the country was a net exporter of food, to the period after 2000 when it became the net importer and major beneficiary of food aid [25]. This shows a transformation period from being the ‘once’ breadbasket of Africa to being a nation that relies on donor aid. Ignowski [9] acknowledges that Zimbabwe’s urban areas had modern infrastructure and a thriving agricultural sector that suffered negatively after the 1990s and the year 2000 due to droughts and unfavourable policies, such as the Fast-Track Resettlement Programme in 2000. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has also shaken the Zimbabwean economy in terms of securing food for the mass especially the poor. In responding to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, the UN-HABITAT has supported local governments to use local solutions aimed at ensuring that food security is guaranteed [28]. One may therefore argue that, UA may prove to be a local solution for many, especially in Africa where some families still rely on subsistence agriculture for a living. Due to the lockdown measures to control the pandemic, many students who benefited from school nutritional programmes have been affected as they can no longer regularly access food from schools [5]. In order to assist vulnerable families, the Zimbabwean government has put street children in designated home centres where they are provided with food, whilst cash transfers and food distribution activities have kick-started in the country as of 30 March 2020 [18]. These programs would not only reduce child vulnerability but also those of their guardians. The unfavourable economic conditions coupled with droughts and unforeseen pandemics all have negative consequences of urban agricultural practices in the country’s urban centres. Manzungu and Machiridza [15] acknowledge that UA is a source of livelihood for the poor, hence its importance. Though not supported by town planning systems [7], UA is still being practiced in Zimbabwe’s major cities, such as Harare and Bulawayo. In a study carried out in Mabvuku and Tafara, it was observed that, though Council had allocated land for UA in the 1980s, more acquisition of land by the locals was attained through open access [14], thus indicating lack of strict regulatory practices by councils. The lack of regulation may be blamed for the pollution of water bodies and siltation of rivers that were a product of urban agriculture. Bulawayo’s urban planning practice is well pronounced as it is practiced in designated areas, as reflected in the city’s master and local plans [2]. Urban agriculture is therefore, well planned for and people will not simply farm anywhere as it may be termed illegal and action taken. The Bulawayo City Council (BCC) is very clear from the onset as it includes urban farming areas in its master and local plans.

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The BCC owns two farms located on the city boundaries and Aisleby Farm makes use of the nearby Aisleby Sewage Works [2]. In this regard, fresh water is saved and treated effluent water discharge is made use of in irrigating the crops. This shows a well-planned and connected urban system that supports urban agriculture in the city of Bulawayo and through this, employment on the farms is created and livelihoods are upgraded as people work on the farms. Urban farmers practice both on-plot (in people’s backyards) and off-plot (in the city’s open spaces reserved for future developments, such as housing) agricultural practices [17]. On-plot agriculture would provide for the day to day needs of people such as vegetable and fruit provisions making life cheaper for the urban inhabitants. In the low-income residential areas of Bulawayo, garden allotments are provided for by Council (BCC), that shows that Council was considerate when planning for the Black people’s neighbourhoods as it took into consideration the people’s way of life. Important to note, however, is that, due to health concerns, such as the production of foul smells and noise, on-plot animal husbandry is prohibited by the Bulawayo City Council [17]. Regulating the type of activities on the land as regards to urban agriculture would not only promote order but also promote effective urban functionality as a result of lack of seriousness. Urban Agriculture has been viewed as an illegal activity [11], hence, the introduction of the Nyanga Declaration on Urban Agriculture in 2002 and the Harare Declaration on Urban and Peri Urban Agriculture that encouraged Local Authorities to develop policies that would, in turn, integrate urban agriculture in the urban system [7, 17]. These efforts would at least acknowledge that UA forms an important component to provision of food security to the urban populace. Furthermore, agriculture is argued to be an essential part of contemporary urban and peri-urban landscapes due to the ability of urban agriculture to support the ecosystem, urban ecology and urban landscape architecture [26]. Urban Agriculture if done property, can result in beautification of the urban environment. The role of the private sector in achieving a sustainable and resilient city region food system is quite denied. It is involved in the different and various parts of the food systems from the input, production, processing, retail and consumption [3]. The involvement of the private sector would to a greater extent support the activities of primary urban agricultural activities through the promotion of local processing and food hubs that may be located in the city centre and may, in turn, maximise on food waste reduction and re-use [3]. Coordination is then facilitated through value chains and value addition, as it becomes easier for someone keeping live chickens in the lowincome residential areas of Harare for instance, to be able to supply those chickens to food outlets that will then process and sell to the urban markets. This promotes effective linkages between the producer and the supplier. However, the World Food Programme [31] explains that the role by the private sector in food and nutrition security remains undocumented and uncoordinated. Transparency becomes an issue especially in the case of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), development agencies and donors. There is need for the private sector to work hand in glove with the government in order to clearly reveal the important role played by private actors,

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NGOs and donor funded programmes in issues of food linkages and provisions in the urban economy. It is however, important to note that, urban agriculture is not a ‘saint’ to food security if not handled properly. This is because of the negative issues that may be associated with urban agriculture especially in the long-run. Bulawayo City Council acknowledges the presence of illegal farming especially during the rainy season [2]. This does not only happen in Bulawayo’s urban but also in Harare as people scrounge for more land in order to take advantage of the rains and thus improve on their yields. This calls for strict regulatory measures on the part of urban councils in order to ensure the efficient functioning of the urban system. Mougeot [16] explains that UA may hamper on urban development by dedicating prime land that may generate more money from being rented out to other uses other than being utilised as agricultural land. This may not be good for local authorities who usually need the money to run the day to day business of urban centres to include refuse collection services. Negative environmental effects, such as destruction of vegetation, soil erosion practices and depletion of water facilities may also arise [16]. There is therefore, need to ensure strict penalties especially on off plot farming as it may result in more harm than good. Some of the wetland areas may need to be preserved in their natural state, as they may carry more benefits, such as ensuring a prolonged and life-time purification of water in the long run.

3 Lessons Learnt • The chapter stresses the importance of UA as a livelihood strategy especially for the poor. UA contributes to reducing hunger that may help a country achieve its Sustainable Development Goals of 2030, that aim to eliminate hunger. UA may also be used as a means to promote the New Urban Agenda which mainly aims at promoting food security in cities. • In a world faced with so many needs, such as the need for increased urban housing, urban agriculture becomes very difficult to be given priority. This calls for the need to learn from the developed world, such as Japan and the Netherlands, the significance of utilising vertical space in facilitating the practice of roof top gardens. This may promote mixed uses resulting in improvement of property values in the urban spaces. • It is noted that, off-plot UA is usually practiced on idle land that may be reserved for other future uses. This indicates lack of seriousness on the part of the Urban Local Authorities due to lack of planning that specifically allocates land to urban agriculture. With time, most of the off-plot land would soon be repossessed and allocated to their initial uses leaving less or no space for agriculture. • The chapter also suggests that, urban economies should be self-sustaining and part of this is achieved through UA. By promoting UA in urban areas, there is the aspect of social inclusion for women and children and by so doing, jobs are

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created and families are sustained through income earning and producing for the local market and possibly for the future markets as well. • Important to note also is the fact that, some of the government policies may either ‘make’ or ‘break’ an urban system. The introduction of the Structural Adjustment Program of 1991 followed by the Land Reform Program of 2000, culminated in a disrupted urban agricultural environment. This would soon turn the bread basket of Africa into a dependent nation. There is therefore, need for the government to fully evaluate the possible negative consequence of any political move or policy before introducing it. • UA would make a nation self-sufficient and prevent it from over-relying on other nations to feed its population. This may prove useful in times of crises such as those experienced under the recent COVID-19 pandemic, as it helps a country to become self-sufficient by producing within its boarders and relying less on imports which may be difficult to reach the country. As time passes by, realising much gains from UA would put back an economy, such as Zimbabwe back on the global map, by making sure that it produces enough for exportation, thus, earning the nation some foreign currency that may be very good for the Gross Domestic Product of the Nation in the near future. As well, due to the Government of Zimbabwe’s agenda to attain zero hunger by the year 2030, food saving, re-use and recycling becomes an option. There is need to learn from other nations, such as Japan that have invented many uses of food waste, such as the formation of animal feed and compost from food waste. These end products from food waste may positively contribute to more productive agriculture in the urban sphere through increased productivity as a result of the use of compost. Animals in the urban inhabitants’ backyards, such as chickens, hares and rabbits may also benefit from animal food generated in the food reuse exercise. It is therefore, evident from the discussions that, the majority of the urban population is poor hence the need to prevent wastages. There is need for people to be innovative from the household level up to the commercial level in ensuring that, urban agriculture is practiced in a sustainable manner and at the same time, food loses are minimised through reusing and recycling measures.

4 Discussion It is quite evident that, the urban landscape is now faced with many challenges, chief within them are issues related to urbanisation, the need for increased accommodation and urban sprawl, among other challenges. This then leaves the question to say: “What is we densify and use part of the land to farm instead of importing? This is because sometimes we import from as far as South Africa – then whose economy are we developing?” The answer to these dynamics can be traced back to town planning and urban form hence, the need to plan with Urban Agriculture in mind.

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Fig. 4 Conceptual framework for understanding the role of UA. Source Arku et al. [1]

The study notes that, UA forms an essential component in ascertaining the future of food security in the urban environments. This in turn supports the New Urban Agenda which emphasises the need for cities to be food secure. The practice of UA however, comes as a challenge in a world faced with so many uncertainties especially those of climate change (Fig. 4). For the healthy functioning of the urban economy, UA is an essential element. This is due to the attached benefits that include increased food security and nutrition, job creation and income generation that would upgrade the urban people’s standards of living. UA also ensures management of municipal waste management through the utilisation of organic waste materials as manure, which would also guarantee soil fertility. In the long-run, UA may promote a cleaner working and living environment and improve on agricultural knowledge. Also, in the wake of pandemics such as the COVID-19 which hit many nations unaware, thus exposing many people to hunger and so much uncertainty as regards to food security, UA may prove useful as it may act as a local strategy to creating local solutions for nations to at least feed their populations without looking forward to imports. The study however, notes that, zoning codes do not usually include UA. This presents a weak point as it does not show relevance in the need for UA in Zimbabwe’s urban areas. In order to ensure seriousness on the part of Municipalities and Local Authorities, there is need to produce zoning codes and ensure inclusivity to ensure that all critical land-uses (UA included) are all legally planned for. This would prevent

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conflict between Local Authorities and people by preventing people from farming in illegal places. Allocating areas for UA would also ensure that some of the negative effects to the environment, such as siltation of rivers, the washing away of inorganic fertilisers into water bodies, and eutrophication of rivers is avoided. There is need to ensure that benefits are maximised and the negative effects are minimised at all costs in order to gain more from urban agricultural practices. Figure 2 also notes that improved health forms part of the benefits of urban agriculture. It is the improved health of the local people that is guaranteed through UA and animal farming hence, the need to also minimise on food wastes. The role of the private sector has previously been noted to participate in food production, processing and consumption. The chapter also notes that, in some instances, some private organisations, non-governmental organisations and donor-funded organisations sometimes come in as donors of food aid to the urban population. There is need to maximise on food usage and reduce on waste in all the processes of production and consumption. Innovativeness in the form of food drying and stewing in some instances, may prevent private restaurants from quickly throwing away food, as it changes use. Food recycling has proven to be a source of income. Prevention of food waste dumping does not only help in feeding the poor but also ensures a clean environment. The saving of food and the prevention of excessive food wastages would help preserve food provisions for the future. In dealing with UA and food waste reuse and recycling, there is need to view the two components as a system that feed into the other by making sure that, output from food waste, is fed as manure in UA. It is therefore, important to plan with the people by educating them on the advantages of seeing the two components as one complete system. This would also allow Council officials to educate people on the dangers associated with inefficient urban agricultural practices that may end up compromising the urban environment. The Council may also get to learn more on how people are benefiting from UA, which may further bring to light why such activities need to be planned for and embedded in the town planning system and zoning codes. Arku et al. [1], also stresses the importance of urban farmers to develop linkages with other sectors in order to gain technical and financial support that may be available mostly for rural farmers. By giving farmers access to bank loans, it makes urban farmers feel relevant and their efforts worthwhile. Governments must therefore, offer equal opportunities for rural and urban farmers and these should all be viewed as important aspects to the development and sustenance of the of a broad national food security policy. In adequately planning for UA, there is need to adequately plan for it in terms of looking at infrastructure that accompanies such activities. These entails relevant and adequate water sources fit for irrigation as opposed to the use of treated safe water, which may raise ethical questions. Therefore, planning for Urban Agriculture is a complex activity that needs proper planning by Local Authorities and the people alike.

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5 Conclusion It can be concluded from the above discussions that, though it may have its weaknesses, UA, if well planned for and well managed, it may have everlasting benefits that may take a nation a positive step towards city development. Urban Agriculture should be considered a normal activity and should be prepared for in order for it to be practiced in an orderly manner at designated places. If practiced well, UA have the ability to take Zimbabwe towards achieving the New Urban Agenda’s vision to ascertain food security in cities and part of its 2030 Sustainable Development Goals that aims to eliminate hunger and promote human well-being. The issue of food waste reuse and recycling may also play an important part towards poverty alleviation by saving part of the food for the poor. Food waste may also be used to produce compost that may be used in UA as a way to produce better yields hence, the need to minimise on food waste losses and leakages in planning for adequate food in urban environments.

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