Celebrating Smallholder Beef-Dairy Champions in Zimbabwe

The Feed the Future Zimbabwe Livestock Development program began June 23, 2015 and runs through October 31 2020. For the past five years, the overall goal of the activity was to provide inclusive economic opportunities to smallholder farmers and other actors along the beef and dairy value chains by sustainably increasing their production, productivity, and incomes to enhance food security, nutrition, and poverty reduction. The program focused on commercializing low-income and food-insecure households in agro-ecological regions (NRs) III, IV, and V with the potential to move from subsistence to small-scale commercial beef and dairy farmers through the promotion and adoption of good agricultural and animal husbandry practices, marketing, hygiene and nutritional practices, and building market linkages that not only generate income but also increase farmers’ overall resilience, food security, and improved nutritional and hygienic status. The program has built demand for smallholder-produced beef and dairy products by focusing on quality, continuity of supply, and cost competitiveness.