Zimbabwean Farmers Adrift Amid Power Struggles
By Busani Bafana
NKAYI, Zimbabwe, Jun 14 2013 (IPS) – For the past five years, farmer Melusi
Mhlanga has spent nearly 200 dollars each season for inputs, but the maize
yields have not matched his investment.
“With good rains I have been able to get more than 20 bags from my two
hectare field but now I barely manage 10 bags,” says Mhlanga, who spoke to
IPS at his homestead where he has diversified into livestock breeding.
“Our maize projections for the 2012/13 season are below three million
tonnes, yet our national need is at 1.8 million tonnes.” — Economic Analyst
Eric Bloch
“Good rains are important for farmers but so is knowhow, which has been a
challenge for me, and I decided to focus more on cattle breeding and running
a business than on growing crops.”
Mhlanga operates a general store, a bottle store and a grinding mill, which
he says are the new sources of income for him and his family since the maize
failed. He now grows sorghum and millet for subsistence.
Extension services, education and advisory services provided by local
technical institutions, are critical in advising farmers on best agronomic
practices to boost productivity and food security. Farmers like Mhlanga are
potential role models under a well-funded agriculture sector.
However, state investment in Zimbabwe’s agriculture has been hijacked by
political priorities at the expense of long-term food and economic gains.
Once the top contributor to GDP, farming is now second to mining. Tobacco is
still the main agricultural export.
At the core of Zimbabwe’s agriculture success is its main asset – land.
Reforms availed more land to more people.
But without investment, there is no cheap finance to buy equipment and
inputs, and no adequately financed and resourced extension services.
“Agriculture and land has become a political football between the main
national parties, and with the donors,” Ian Scoones, an agricultural
ecologist and professorial fellow at the Institute of Development Studies at
the University of Sussex, UK who has extensively researched Zimbabwe’s
agricultural sector, told IPS.
“Neither ZANU PF [Zimbabwe’s ruling party] nor the MDC [the leading
opposition party] have a coherent agricultural and rural development policy.
Neither has thought through the implications of land reform.”
Scoones, co-author of the critically acclaimed book “Zimbabwe’s Land Reform:
Myths and Realities”, explains that historically, Zimbabwe has invested
massively in agriculture – in the pre-Independence period with the focus on
building white commercial farming, and the period immediately
post-Independence smallholder farmers in the communal areas.
“Since 2000, the land reform programme took precedence, and, for a period,
agricultural investment was run directly by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe,”
said Scoones. “Much of this spending was inappropriate, corrupt and so
poorly focused. Since 2009, with the stabilisation of the economy, there has
been some limited investment, but not enough.”
Economic analyst Eric Bloch said Zimbabwe can restore its agricultural
fortunes but first needs to tackle its external debt burden, convert current
offer letters on land to transferable leases, and clarify the implementation
of the Indigenisation Act, which is precluding potential investors.
“We are in a food insecurity situation as we are still dependent on
international food aid and maize imports,” Bloch told IPS. “Our maize
projections for the 2012-13 season are below three million tonnes, yet our
national need is at 1.8 million tonnes. That is why we are importing 1.5
million tonnes from Zambia and other countries.”
The World Food Programme estimates that up to 1.6 million Zimbabweans will
need food aid after a poor harvest by smallholder farmers who contribute
about 50 percent of the national maize crop.
“The only times that the government has put a lot of resources into
agriculture is during election years for obvious reasons,” agricultural
economist and farmer Peter Gambara told IPS.
“This year, Minister [Tendai] Biti tried to put more resources into
agriculture because it is now accepted that the performance of the
agricultural sector is affecting the performance of the whole economy, and
he has been criticised by fellow ministers and the president for failing to
allocate adequate resources to such an important sector like agriculture.”
Unveiling Zimbabwe’s 2013 budget, Finance Minister Tendai Biti projected
that agriculture will grow by 4.6 percent, up from a negative 5.8 percent in
tumultuous 2008.