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An improved understanding of soil fertility variability and farmers’ resource use strategies is required for targeting soil fertility improving technologies to different niches within farms. We measured the variability of soil fertility with distance from homesteads on smallholder farms of different socio-economic groups on two soil types, a granite sand and a red clay, in Murewa, northeast Zimbabwe. Soil organic matter, available P and CEC decreased with distance from homestead on most farms. Soil available P was particularly responsive to management, irrespective of soil type, as it was more concentrated on the plots closest to homesteads on wealthy farms (8–13mgkg⁻¹), compared with plots further from homesteads and all plots on poor farms (2–6mgkg⁻¹). There was a large gap in amounts of mineral fertilizers used by the wealthiest farmers (>100kg N and >15kg P per farm; 39kgNha⁻¹ and 7kgPha⁻¹) and the …