This study sought to determine whether farm categories influence the key agro business supply chain metric of crop yield. The investigated farm categories are the communal farms, A1 farms, A2 farms, and commercial farms that reflect the agricultural structure that emerged from the post-fast-track land reform programme in Zimbabwe. Secondary data for crop yield was collected from the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board publications of a five-year period spanning from 2014-2018. Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board is the regulatory authority of the Zimbabwean tobacco industry. The study used One-way ANOVA to test the specified hypotheses. A post hoc test was conducted using the Bonferroni procedure. The results indicated that crop yield is a function of the farm category. Communal farms had low crop yield, while A1 farm models proved to be very productive as evidenced by higher crop yield than any other farm category. A2 farms and commercial farms had unexpectedly low crop yield. The study recommended consolidation and transformation of communal areas into small-to-medium plots for the purposes of improving their agricultural viability, while at the same time downsizing the redundant A2 and commercial farms into small scale plots for the purposes of improving their efficiency. The study also recommended entering into resource-providing contract farming with A2 farmers whose current low yield might be due to lack of adequate input resources.

Food supply chain disruptions have of recent increased in terms of severity and frequency leading to viability problems for most businesses in related supply chain networks and hunger among millions of human beings. In the extant supply chain literature elements of responsive supply chain such as velocity, versatility, and visibility have been suggested as some of the possible strategies to build supply chain resilience. It has therefore been suggested in this study that these elements’ influence on supply chain resilience is moderated by contract farming as a special form of supplier development. Farming contracts are either production or marketing contracts. Data was collected from a conveniently selected sample of 200 restaurants that use supplier development in the form of contract farming for acquiring critical resources for their operations. A structural equation modelling was used to analyse data related to the direct effects and multi group structural equation modelling was used to assess the moderating effects. The results revealed that there is a statistically significant relationship between the three selected elements of responsive supply chain management and supply chain resilience, and all the hypothesised relationships were moderated by type of farming contracts, with the relationships being stronger under marketing contracts for supply chain velocity, and under production contracts than under marketing contracts for relationships involving versatility and visibility. Therefore, the study recommended that production contracts be used in the fast-food restaurant industry in order to reduce supply chain vulnerabilities, and marketing contracts to build supply chain capabilities. This is the first study that has sought to assess the differential utility of different farming contracts through assessing their moderating effects as a build-up on previous research that has already established that supplier development in the form of contract farming leads to supplier development.