Resilience capacities and implications for food security in Zimbabwe

Abstract

There is an emerging body of studies assessing the influence of resilience on household food security in developing countries. Yet no study has systematically analysed this theme in Zimbabwe, an area that we address. Data was collected from 331 randomly selected farm households in four districts of Zimbabwe. Factor analysis was used to compute resilience capacities. Poisson regression was used for model estimations. Assets, market diversity and social capital increased dietary diversity by 7.5%, 3.6% and 2.9% respectively. Interventions that enhance asset accumulation, for example incomegenerating activities, should be promoted. Promoting farmer groups and collective actions are important to strengthen social capital. Adaptive and absorptive capacity increases dietary diversity by 5.9% and 5.4% respectively. Household resilience is positively associated with dietary diversity. The public and private sectors and civil society need to promote interventions that build adaptive, absorptive, and overall resilience capacity of farming households to enhance food security.