Maize is Life! Maize Production and Environmental Transformation in Wartime Rhodesia: 1965-1979

This research examines linkages in maize production, the liberation struggle and environmental transformation in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, 1965-1979. The paper is about discourses on rural livelihoods and ecological transformation in times of crises. It uses the case study research strategy to examine wartime production of the staple maize in ten communal areas of Mount Darwin District by the Korekore people, part of the Shona ethnic group, the largest in Zimbabwe. To a large extent, the Korekore depended on maize-dominated diets and incomes. Their maize economy had far-reaching environmental ramifications in the form of deforestation and soil erosion leading to loss of biodiversity. This was at a time when the entire Mount Darwin District was the epicentre of fourteen years of, at first, low intensity warfare followed by widespread intensive and extensive rural-based guerrilla fighting, which altered maize based livelihoods and the environment. Mount Darwin District offers the best opportunity to analyse how maize farming, war and ecology interacted, because the war of independence not only began in this region in 1965, but the Korekore bore the brunt of the fighting - including confinement in several so called protected villages, keeps or makipi. Maize production was steady during the first phase of the war, 1965-72, but its potential for growth was hamstrung and disrupted with the intensification of conflict, 1973-79. While maize agriculture remained a key livelihood strategy, its continuous cultivation on the same fields resulted in environmental degeneration.