Since its establishment in 1995 as a country chapter of the PELUM Association, PELUM Zimbabwe has been active in networking, capacity-building and the PELUM College Zimbabwe, the first agroecology school in southern Africa. PELUM Zimbabwe’s mission is to upscale participatory ecological land use management practices for improved nutrition security, livelihoods and environmental sustainability. PELUM Zimbabwe promotes participatory land use management practices that are ecologically aligned with the laws of nature, economically viable and socially just. To do this, they focus on seed and nutrition with the goal of strengthening community based seed systems or farmer managed seed systems; land management with a focus on the correct management of livestock to regenerate landscapes using livestock and indigenous knowledge and wisdom and; agroecology marketing with the goal of transforming how marketing is viewed and supported by various stakeholders in Zimbabwe.

PELUM Zimbabwe works with its member organizations who partner with small scale farmers. PELUM Zimbabwe’s strategic objectives are:

• To strengthen livelihoods, recognition and resilience of smallholder farmers (and consumers) in Zimbabwe;
• Diversify farming systems that activate key processes essential for the productivity and sustainability of agro-ecosystems; and
• Build movements through the creation of a vibrant networking platform on participatory ecological land use management practices.

In collaboration with the Seed and Knowledge Initiative (SKI) and Regenerative Agroecology, PELUM Zimbabwe has also kickstarted a program using livestock to restore depleted land.
 
Cover photography by Tall Grass Media