Impacts of improved sorghum varieties intensification on household welfare in the mid-Zambezi Valley of Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT Attaining food and income security is a persistent challenge among small holder farmers of Southern Africa. Improved sorghum varieties are widely regarded as a panacea to extreme poverty. The paper uses endogenous switching regression to determine impacts of improved sorghum varieties intensification on household welfare. Household dietary diversity score and household food insecurity access score were used as outcome variables and proxies for food security. Cross-sectional data were generated in the Mid Zambezi Valley of Zimbabwe in 2016 from 380 households in a survey conducted with five purposively selected wards. Social association groups, average weighted market prices, household income, age of principal decision maker, dependency ratio, ownership of draught power and storage facilities have significant (p < 0.01) implications on the adoption decision. Counterfactual analyses shows that farmers who allocate more land towards improved sorghum varieties are relatively better off in food diversity and food access. Intensifying improved sorghum varieties can increase dietary diversity by 35% while reducing food insecurity by 29–34%. Social networking can be strengthened through local, government and private partnerships to facilitate generation and efficient dissemination of sorghum production and marketing information. Improving the market prices can increase market size and enhance efficiency along strategic value chain nodes.