| Summary/Abstract |
This paper focuses on the establishment of agricultural innovation platforms (AIPs) in the communal areas of Hwedza in Zimbabwe. Through the efforts of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), there have been initiatives to improve agricultural productivity in Africa and Zimbabwe in particular. One such intervention has been the AIPs that seek to bring together all stakeholders who can meaningfully contribute to the improvement of agriculture. Using largely qualitative approaches, data was collected through interviews from small scale farmers as well as different actors who were involved in the AIPs. The respondents in the study also included NGO workers, academic researchers, government workers, traditional leaders, agricultural financiers, extension workers and state-owned institutions. Using Norman Long’s interface analysis as the central theoretical framework, key findings showed that communal areas were active communities that had their own socio-economic network systems which govern how smallholder farmers operate. It also emerged that IPs are a result of a combination of the social and the formal/institutionalised structures that interacted in Hwedza. The paper concludes that IPs were established in Hwedza through a series of interactive processes among actors and these were not always smooth and successful.
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