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At the attainment of Zimbabwe's independence, government of Zimbabwe established the smallholder dairy development programme to encourage smallholder farmers to participate in formal milk markets. Although now more than three decades since the government established this programme, smallholder contribution to the national formal market remains low at 5%. This study was undertaken to determine factors affecting milk market participation and volume of sales to milk collection centres of the smallholder dairy value chain. Four smallholder dairy schemes were purposively selected on the basis of whether the scheme participated in the semi-formal or formal dairy value chain. A total of 185 farmers were then selected through simple random sampling and interviewed using a pretested structured questionnaire. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and Heckman two-stage selection econometric models. Results show that resources (represented by dairy cows, household size), knowledge (educational level, access to information and extension), experience (household head age) and agro-ecological region significantly determined farmers' participation in milk markets. The study also shows the determinants of milk sales volumes to be resources (number of dairy cows and landholding size); market access (distance to milk collection centre); ambition of the farmer (age); and natural climatic conditions (agro-ecological region). Government policy interventions therefore need to be targeted at increasing the number of dairy cows, taking into account landholding and market access, targeting educated, young farmers located in agro-ecological regions I and II, providing them with adequate, appropriate information and extension packages in order to enhance milk market participation and volume of sales.

There is a need for the agricultural technical vocational education and training curriculum in Zimbabwe to be reformed so that it can respond to changes in farmer demographics, the expanding roles of agricultural extension officers (AEOs), changes in technology and climate change. The current agriculture curriculum was developed for a different context altogether; therefore, it now lacks relevance to the prevailing socio-economic, political and environmental changes. There is a need for the curriculum to respond to the evolving needs of farmers, AEOs and institutions providing agricultural extension, and to match the changes in AEOs’ occupation role profiles. This article draws on curricular documents from five institutions involved in the agricultural extension curriculum and policy, together with 22 respondents, with the aim of exposing gaps in the agricultural extension curriculum. In addition, the article explores the ways in which the curriculum can be reimagined to meet the needs of small-scale farmers, AEOs and emerging agricultural developments and digital technologies. The authors advance what might be the processes of change in the curriculum, highlighting the weaknesses of the current curriculum as well as what a more responsive curriculum for Zimbabwe should look like in the light of both local and international expectations. In so doing, it contributes to a wider international debate about agricultural education reform.

Deforestation is one of the major effects posed by the smallholder tobacco farming as the farmers heavily depend on firewood sourced from natural forest for curing tobacco. The research aims at assessing the factors that influence the harvesting of natural forest in the production of tobacco. Data is collected through the structured questionnaire from 60 randomly selected farmers. Binary logistic regression model is used to explain the significance of factors influencing natural forest harvesting. Results show that farmer experience, tobacco selling price, and agricultural training level negatively affect the harvesting of natural forests (to obtain firewood) for curing tobacco significantly (p<0.05). However, gender, size of the household, tobacco yield, and level of education are insignificant (p>0.05) in influencing natural forest harvesting. Though farmers are exploiting the environment and at the same time increasing foreign currency earning through tobacco production, there is therefore a need to put in place policies that encourage sustainable forest product utilization such as gum plantations, subsidizing price of coal, and introducing fees, as well as penalties or taxes to the offenders.