A/HRC/43/44/Add.2
and to learn new practices to improve their production and working conditions. Such training
programmes should be supported by the Government and disseminated throughout the
country.
76.
Among the most important features guiding the school is the implementation of
sustainable ways of living and reproduction. No chemicals are ever used, the production of
healthy food being the school’s main philosophy. The school’s strategies constantly adapt to
the versatility of weather patterns, thus demonstrating that a sustainable production of food
items is possible in the long term, despite the effects of climate change. More importantly,
the diversification of food production will undoubtedly help address the malnutrition
problem, and release the country from its dependency on maize.
77.
The Government’s climate-change and disaster-response policies should fully
integrate the protection of peoples’ access to food in times of emergency. These efforts
should pay special attention to those who are especially vulnerable, including farmers,
fisherfolk and rural populations, and take into account a gender perspective.
78.
In this context, the Special Rapporteur refers to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development, to which the Government has committed itself, and in particular Sustainable
Development Goal 2, on ending hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrition, and
promoting sustainable agriculture. The governmental policy should carefully pick the
production methods that fit the geography and climate conditions of the particular region and
implement appropriate agroecological practices rather than industrial monoculture systems
that will have significant detrimental effects on the climate.
V. Structural obstacles to the realization of the right to food
79.
Beyond the current food crisis, the Special Rapporteur observed structural and
systemic obstacles to the realization of the right to food in Zimbabwe. In addition to not
having secure land tenure, major constraints affecting the agricultural sector include limited
access to market information, unreliable supply of affordable inputs, lack of agricultural
financing, high transportation costs due to inadequate road infrastructure, inadequate
irrigation systems and vulnerability to weather-related shocks. Since 2000, the country has
experienced a negative trend in the production and productivity of its main staple cereals,
maize and wheat, which has compromised national and household food and nutrition security.
A.
Agriculture and land system
80.
As Zimbabweans remain largely a rural people who derive their livelihood from
agriculture and other related rural economic activities, agriculture is the backbone of the
country’s economy, contributing 15 to 20 per cent of the GDP and providing livelihoods for
about 70 per cent of the population. As the main source of livelihood for the majority of the
population, the performance of agriculture is a key determinant of rural resilience, poverty
eradication, and social and political cohesion.
81.
Zimbabwe has a number of distinct farming systems, which reflect historical land
allocation and tenures as well as natural resources and available technologies. Upon
achieving independence in 1980, after close to 100 years of British rule, Zimbabwe inherited
a dual agricultural system: large-scale commercial farms and small-scale communal land,
with the former mainly held in freehold and the latter de jure owned by the President, but de
facto communally owned. Communal ownership confers individual rights to plots for houses,
gardens and fields with shared and unlimited access to grazing land.
82.
The foundations for this division of land were laid in the earlier part of the century.
The means for doing so were expropriation, the legal segregation of the market in land –
through the Land Apportionment Act of 1930 – and the gradual and often forced removal of
so-called “black squatters” from the “white” areas. The position of white farmers was further
bolstered by price discrimination against black peasants in the produce markets and various
interventionist measures by the State. These policies combined to produce and maintain
13
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