An Exploration of the Value of Indigenous Knowledge Adaptation Strategies in Ensuring Food Security and Livelihoods in Southern Zimbabwe

Abstract

Extreme weather events such as droughts and El Nino induced events have become more frequent and intense in southern Zimbabwe leading to food and livelihood insecurity for most households. Disadvantaged groups, such as the poor, widowed and orphaned, are more vulnerable to these events which are a result of climate variability and change. This is a result of the absence, weak and maladaptation practices to climate variability and change in most cases. High vulnerability has threatened food and livelihood security as evidenced by hunger, outbreak of diseases and loss of livestock. Maladaptation tends to be a result of the imposition of foreign adaptation strategies that do not augur well with specific environments. Conventional adaptation methods such as dam construction, borehole drilling and irrigation schemes are less robust due to the effects of climate change that has led to the shrinking of water bodies and lowering of the water table. Pre-colonial communities knew and managed their environments very well through observations and direct experience with their natural environments and this led to the development of indigenous knowledge systems which enabled people to get the most out of their environments. Indigenous knowledge adaptation strategies tend to ensure sustainable food and livelihood security because they are 'culture-fit' and accessible to all people. It is recommended that communities in southern Zimbabwe should synergise ethnoscience and techno-science adaptation strategies in order to build a robust resilience against climate variability and change.