Zimbabwe faces a likely below-average rainfall season from September 2026 through January 2027, driven by forecast El Niño conditions, according to the latest Key Message Update from the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) published on ReliefWeb.

The forecast carries direct consequences for a farm sector where the main maize-planting window opens with the November rains. Poorly distributed or deficient rainfall during the September-to-January period would strike at crop establishment, grazing availability and water points across communal farming areas, hitting smallholder households that supply the bulk of national maize output.

FEWS NET frames the outlook around livelihoods and markets, not just weather. Below-average rainfall typically reduces casual agricultural labor opportunities — weeding, planting and harvesting work that generates cash income for rural households in the lean months. Where crops fail or yields fall, household grain stocks deplete earlier, pushing farmers into market purchases at a time when staple prices tend to rise seasonally.

For Zimbabwe's grain markets, a poor rainfall forecast usually tightens supply. Reduced maize harvests would leave the Grain Marketing Board and private millers more dependent on imports or carryover stocks, and local maize meal prices could climb faster than the typical seasonal pattern. Livestock producers also face risk: poor pasture regeneration and low dam levels would raise supplemental feeding costs and cut into herd conditions, particularly in drier southern districts such as Matabeleland and Masvingo, which historically register the largest rainfall deficits in El Niño years.

Readers should treat the FEWS NET statement as a forecast, not a harvested result. It rests on seasonal rainfall projections tied to El Niño sea-surface-temperature patterns, which carry probability, not certainty. Historical El Niño events in southern Africa have produced outcomes ranging from crop failure to near-normal harvests depending on rainfall distribution across individual months, and updated forecasts through the season can shift the picture materially.

The September-to-January window named in the update matters because it spans both land preparation and the critical flowering and grain-fill stages for early-planted maize. Rainfall deficits concentrated in December and January tend to do more yield damage than deficits spread across the season, a distinction agronomists and traders will watch in monthly updates.

Market participants and input suppliers will also read the forecast against input demand. In deficit seasons, seed and fertilizer sales often fall as farmers scale back planted area or shift to shorter-cycle varieties and drought-tolerant crops such as sorghum, pearl millet and groundnuts. Government and donor seed-distribution programs can partially offset the input gap, as seen during the 2023/24 El Niño season when regional response plans scaled up across southern Africa.

FEWS NET says the forecast rainfall deficit is likely to affect both livelihoods and markets over the period, signaling that humanitarian agencies and government planners will monitor food-security outcomes closely as the season develops. The next rounds of seasonal updates, alongside the Zimbabwe Meteorological Services Department's own forecasts, will determine whether the projected deficit holds, weakens or deepens through the January cutoff.