Editor’s desk:Zimbabwe should wake up to reality
December 2, 2012 in Editorial
Driving down highways and dirt roads in southern Zimbabwe, one cannot miss
the smell of death emanating from the parched veld. Scrawny animals —
donkeys and cattle — feebly try to hold on to dear life but their corrugated
torsos are testimony to the lost war against hunger. Carrion birds swivel in
the sky as they circle another rotting carcass.
EDITORIAL BY NEVANJI MADANHIRE
But the hunger — and the death — is not confined only to animals!
Southern Zimbabwe’s soils have become powdery as the Kalahari Desert creeps
in, supporting only cactus and little else in the form of vegetation. The
people of these areas have become resilient; their tragedy only etched in
their wizened faces.
The men smile when you greet them and laugh their raucous laughter when you
ask about their lot, but the women’s usually careless laughter as they play
at the village well is missing. It is they who bear the burden of food
shortages most. In such situations, men become migratory. They move from one
beer party to another and even spend their time at the growth points
extorting beer from visitors. But the women have to remain at home with the
children — and the empty pots.
The talk in the region revolves around the rain. Still a superstitious lot,
they attribute the persistent droughts to some abomination they committed
against their ancestors. Some still consult rainmakers but the rainmakers
seem to have forgotten their shrines and the tools of their trade.
But this sad story is not one for rainmakers. Climate patterns have long
been mapped which, in Zimbabwe, have indicated that in the past three
decades the country has experienced a drought every three or so years. Add
to this the international phenomenon of climate change, then we have a real
challenge.
Zimbabwe’s response to the perpetual droughts has been, to say the least,
childish. When a child is crying, another child will give him/her a morsel
of his/her own food. The crying child may as well quieten for a while but
will soon enough cry again as the pangs of hunger bite. That’s what the
national response to the perennial hunger problem has been. Give them food
hand-outs, has been the response. Give them inputs too, even when it’s
patently clear the rains won’t come.
The basis of this thinking is not far to find. If they are kept poor and
hungry, they will continue to look up to you for food hand-outs; they will
see you as a god, they will vote for you!
The vote has become the raison d’état of our politics. Everything that our
politicians do is meant to secure the vote. This is the reason why food is
no longer viewed by them as means of the nourishment of the people but as a
means of political survival.
Food hand-outs, which should be a stopgap measure have become a permanent
feature of our culture. Everyone knows that giving people food hand-outs and
inputs, year in, year out, is not sustainable and is grossly humiliating to
the recipients. In recent years, it has become very clear that the source of
the hand-outs has not been transparent, just and honest. The food and the
inputs are distributed in a certain fashion to suit certain agendas
influenced by the need to secure the vote.
One thing that has become clear over the years is that the recipients of
these food and input hand-outs are fighting their humiliation although in a
manner that might be senseless. In the past few weeks we have read in the
papers about how the donated inputs are quickly sold to passers-by. This
means the recipients do not value donated stuff; they wish to use something
they have earned, something they have worked for. During the height of the
land reform programme, new farmers were handed out thousands of litres of
fuel to use for tillage. But what did they do? They sold the diesel fuel by
the roadside. In their subconscious minds, the fuel was never theirs and
besides, why wait for a whole season to make money while one can make it
immediately by selling the free-flowing fuel?
The result of the free hand-out system to the new farmers is clear. A new
class of farmers has been created which will forever look up to government
for farming inputs. The little they grow, harvest and sell is only for
consumption, not for investing back into the land. Why not, when government
will continue to give them more inputs? Why not when those in power will
continue with their open-handedness in return for the vote?
This symbiotic relationship between politics and laziness is at the heart of
Zimbabwe’s decline. Both the communal farmers who have remained in the
barren lands and the peasants who have occupied some of the country’s most
fertile land, look forward to election years because their rulers will be
even more open-handed and increase the price of produce on the market. Civil
servants too, look forward to the election year because they will get salary
increments and the annual bonus. But all this is unsustainable, and everyone
knows it.
We should look at our situation in a more scientific manner and come up with
solutions that are long-term. The Tokwe-Mukosi Dam has not been completed 30
years after the first clod of dirt was shovelled! The reason: completing it
didn’t immediately translate into votes. There are many projects lying
uncompleted throughout the country for the same reason, yet the amount of
money that has been thrown in the form of inputs over the years could have
completed a dozen Tokwe-Mukosi dams.
The whole world is facing a serious food crisis with food prices rising more
than 60% in some parts of the world in the past year alone. In our
subcontinent 3,5 million people need food aid this year. In Africa as a
whole, the number is tenfold or bigger. The trend is likely to continue in
the foreseeable future.
Can Zimbabwe see this as an opportunity rather than a shackle? Can Zimbabwe
turn around its farming sector so that it can feed not only itself but the
region and even the continent? Do our farms have to lie fallow or be farmed
by half-hearted people simply in the fulfilment of an ideal? Do we realise
that food is going to be more valuable than even diamonds, platinum or gold
in the very near future?
The truth of the matter is: We create more jobs by correcting our farming
sector than through any politically-motivated indigenisation or any JUICEs!
We just have to wake up.