Covid-19 Impacts on Food Systems within the context of Urban-Rural linkages nexus in Zimbabwe:

Case of Harare, Mutoko and Murewa Districts

Abstract

The production, distribution and marketing of food is critical towards promoting food security and urban-rural linkages within a food system. This study examines the impacts of Covid-19 on food systems within the context of rural-urban linkages nexus between Harare and the districts of Mutoko and Murewa. This is against the background that the outbreak of Covid-19 and the containment measures taken against the pandemic, such as social distancing, lockdowns and travel restrictions, changed the way people live and interact, their livelihoods strategies, and movement between places. The consequential effects of Covid-19 pandemic globally include, among others, economic decline, reduced incomes, and constrained production, which all affected food production, distribution and consumption in the rural and urban areas. To achieve its aim, the study adopted a mixed methods research design that combined the use of questionnaire-based interviews, key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and observations, to collect data from farmers and traders selected through snowball sampling procedure. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to analyse the data. Findings reveal that Covid-19 and the containment measures affected food production, transportation and marketing between rural and urban areas. These included reduced trading hours that reduced the quantity of food traded; food losses that disincentivised farmers from further production; reduction of the farmers and traders incomes; corruption and bribes at road block set up to enforce Covid-19 travel restrictions; and increased costs of operations to farmers, traders and food transporters. Within the stakeholder engagement framework, the study recommends that the national government, City of Harare, farmers, transporters and food traders form a dialogue platform that listens to the diverse interest of stakeholders in the management of the food markets, removal of middlemen, refurbishment and decentralisation of food markets within the Harare Metropolitan Province.