Zim’s fall from agricultural grace

Zimbabwe,once the bread basket of Africa, needs a land audit says the writer to ensure that the country s agricultural sector gets back on track. Picture: Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi

How is it that a country once the bread basket of Africa is now begging for maize and wheat, asks Welshman Ncube.
 
Harare - Those of us who grew up in Rhodesia knew from an early age that the foundational pillars of the strength of the Rhodesian economy lay in agriculture, mining and manufacturing.

So strong was Rhodesia’s agriculture, whatever could be said of its racist outlook in respect of land ownership and control that I, just like most middle-aged Zimbabweans, grew up on a generous diet of state “propaganda” that our country “is the bread basket of Africa”.

Thus both in Rhodesia and the first one and a half decades of independence, we took it for granted that not only could we feed ourselves, but we could feed the region and to some extent the larger world.

Accordingly, in 1980, the late former president of Tanzania Julius Nyerere said to then-prime minister Robert Mugabe: “You have inherited the jewel of Africa, please take care not to spoil it.”
Spoil it he has.

The truth is that Rhodesia and the “early part” of Zimbabwe produced millions of tons of grain and horticulture products. Even during the worst droughts, our silos would carry enough grain reserves to take us through to the next rainy season. The country boasted of hard-working rural citizens routinely accorded “Master Farmer” status, with critical knowledge imparted by committed agriculture extension officers.

How is it that a country once famous for exporting excess grain to the region is now begging for maize and wheat from Zambia, Malawi and South Africa?

Who is culpable for this spectacular fall from agricultural grace?
Why is there now so much more agricultural disequilibrium than ever before?
The answers are embedded in one word: climate – both atmospheric and political.

Irrefutable evidence exists that the atmospheric climate I grew up under in the 1960s and 1970s has drastically changed – for the worse. Climate researchers in various government departments have proof that Zimbabwe’s rainy seasons are now shorter with longer dry spells.

The political and governance climate like the atmospheric climate is also a cause of food insecurity in Zimbabwe.

For all his political transgressions, Ian Smith and his Rhodesia Front had mastered the art of food production.
The colonialists had demarcated our country into three distinct agricultural regions – rural, small holder and commercial farming areas. It is true that our parents, though classified as peasants, produced enough maize to diligently deliver to the nearest government silos.

But our country’s breadbasket status was secured by more organised, intensive, title-supported, bankable, irrigation-based commercial farming. In fact, economists agreed that the strength of Zimbabwe’s gross domestic product (GDP) lay in the country’s agro-based industry.

Factories, engineering companies, retailers and banking services relied heavily on the value chain of agriculture.

President Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party had been content in the comfort of disputed land tenure as their political hegemony was virtually uncontested. As long as industrialists and commercial farmers did not interfere with Zanu-PF’s political dominance, the property rights scene and political temperature remained stable. But all that changed when the MDC came into the political arena.

However, how did this affect Zimbabwe’s breadbasket status? That the land ownership and control structure patterns that existed up to 2000 were unsustainable, unfair and unjust is incontestable. That justice and fairness needed to be brought to bear thereon is equally indisputable. At some point, and through some policy process and intervention, commercial agriculture had to be democratised.

What I have always contested is the crude methodology, warped logic and vindictive nature of Mugabe’s fast-track land reform programme from 2000 which obliterated the agricultural sector.

This is why Zimbabwe can no longer cope with the negative effects of climate change.
Millions of peasant farmers resettled in previously title-secure commercial farms, received virtually no meaningful support to become successful farmers. Some had no skills or resources to produce grain. Five thousand white commercial farmers who were rendered homeless, abandoned agriculture and left for other countries – with their skills.

Their unpaid farming debts crippled the banking sector. Fertiliser and tractor companies heavily dependent on the agriculture value chain were liquidated, so were engineering companies.

The collapse of agricultural production in a country whose manufacturing sector was/is essentially founded on agri-based industries inevitably led to the collapse of manufacturing. In one stroke, two of the pillars of the country’s economy were mortally wounded by the actions of Zanu-PF.

Today, as you read this; former white Zimbabwean citizens expelled by Mugabe are performing farming wonders in Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi and Nigeria.

What these countries have in common is their respect for property rights.
This year, Zimbabwe will have to import almost 1 million tons of grain from some of those countries because we can no longer produce 3 million tons to feed ourselves. Of course, Zanu-PF propaganda blames climate change and “Western sanctions”, but why has climate change not affected Zambia?

Mugabe has already travelled many times around the world, costing our treasury well over $60 million (nearly R835m). His ministers and their officials still drive the latest “Western cars”.
Zimbabweans import $54 billion (worth of) goods every year. Members of Zanu-PF send their children to colleges overseas.

Sanctions, what sanctions?
 
Maize production has fallen from a peak of 2 million tons in 2000 to just over 500 000 tons last year; wheat from a peak of just over 300 000 tons in 2001 to less than 10 000 tons last year; coffee from 10 000 tons in 1998 to nearly 1 000 tons last year; beef from a peak of just under 160 000 tons in 1991 to nearly 25 000 tons by last year; milk from a peak of 250 million litres in 1991 to about 50 million litres by last year. As a result, the country’s food imports multiplied almost seven-fold between 2000 and now, although pre-2000 tobacco production has been restored in the last three years.

There was need to redress the situation where 15 million arable hectares were in a few hands. The MDC does not agree with land reform which removes the right to due process, negates constitutionalism and legality, abandons rule of law principles and is implemented in a manner that negates the right to work and effectively renders jobless previously employed citizens.

This is the picture of “land reform” as implemented from 2000. The result: Zimbabwe’s isolation; a drastic decline of our agricultural output; 2 million citizens under constant threat of starvation; an annual $700m food import bill; 300 000 unemployed former farmworkers; 5 000 white citizens deprived of their property under a law which abrogated due process; massive deforestation in former commercial farms; a 90 percent increase in wildlife poaching; a 60 percent collapse of agro-based industries and related job losses pointing towards 90 percent formal unemployment; millions of children displaced from “proper” rural to makeshift farm schools.

Zimbabwe needs a full land audit to rationalise land tenural systems, land use, expose corruption in allocation and ensure justice in land acquisition