Zimbabwe is divided into six regions based on rainfall, and regions four, five and six are particularly known for water shortages and drought. These regional divisions have been instrumental in determining land distribution and land use, since different crops need different amounts of water. Agriculture contributes between 30 to 40 percent of total exports and 14 percent of Gross Domestic Product, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization.

Currently, much of Zimbabwe's arable land lies in disuse, either because it has not been distributed appropriately, or because of a lack of infrastructure to irrigate and develop it appropriately. In addition, peasants who lack access to land or water have begun squatting and farming in areas like streambeds and watersheds, a practice that causes additional soil erosion and water shortages.

Increasing the productivity of farms and the amount of arable land and water available is critical to improving, or even just maintaining basic food security for many communities in the region. While the population continues to grow 3 percent a year in southern Africa, agricultural output is rising by only 2 percent, F.A.O. reports. This suggests the need for a major increase in grain imports, or a dramatic shift in water management strategies.

Water management for agriculture poses particular challenges. First, the amount of rainfall which flows into rivers, streams or underground aquifers is only 20 percent throughout Africa, and as little as 9 percent in parts of southern Africa. The rest evaporates or is absorbed by plants before it can be accumulated as a water resource. The ratio of runoff to precipitation globally is much higher, at 37 percent, according to a 1996 article in Science by Sandra Postel, Gretchen Daily and Paul Ehrlich entitled, "Human Appropriation of Renewable Fresh Water."

Second, sub-Saharan Africa is drought prone, with variable and unpredictable rainfall. And lastly, the region has limited supplies of groundwater, accounting for roughly 15 percent of the region's renewable water supply, according to the 1995 F.A.O. report on Irrigation in Africa. For these reasons, irrigation projects are much more expensive in this area than elsewhere and donors have shied away from investing heavily in an arena that is unlikely to yield timely returns.

Another important backdrop for the water concerns of small-scale farmers lies in the issue of land distribution. In the '70s, Zimbabwe fought a civil war against the colonial regime over the issue of control, struggling to establish majority rule in what was then Rhodesia. Colonial rule often amounted to domination over land, since at that time the most fertile lands had been allocated to white settlers, who controlled large tracts of land that Africans were prohibited from farming.

Years later, despite many changes in the structure of power through the establishment of independence and majority rule, land distribution continues to be the central issue for a country with a significant rural farming population. One Zimbabwean commented, referring to a series of settlements along a freeway, "That is why we are fighting for land. That is no place to farm."

On January 6, The Financial Gazette reported the proposal of a policy by Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe to redistribute farmlands in disuse by white farmers whose properties extend beyond a certain size. For example, in region six, the driest, a farmer's landholding would be limited to 3,000 hectares. Although this approach could go far in helping landless peasants sustain themselves, implementing this policy is so complex that there is skepticism about how well it could work.

The issue of land distribution runs as deep as Zimbabwe's history and defies a simple resolution. Even appropriation of land would not assure its equitable distribution, due to favoritism and corruption.

The result is that small-scale farmers – 80-85 percent of the farming population in the country (as reported by A. Kandiah in the proceedings of the 1997 F.A.O. subregional workshop in Harare on Irrigation Technology Transfer in Support of Food Security) – are left with small plots that are settled close to one another in areas that are seldom ideal for farming. Ownership is also a concern, since many farmers lack titles to their lands. These are held by large landowners or by the government, making investment in the land itself less appealing to the farmers who reside there.

These challenges mean that farmers must do as much as they can with the arable land and water resources that they do have, recognizing their own abilities to preserve and protect water and soil, while land distribution and management policies struggle to catch up with the need for change.