Government plans to spend $24,4 million for the ongoing dam construction, maintenance or expansion projects at Tokwe-Mukosi, Osborne, Semwa and Mutange, according to the 2015 Budget

Jeffrey Gogo Climate Story
Mechanisation in agriculture has started making headlines once again. In the past fortnight, Zimbabwe took delivery of an assortment of farming equipment from Brazil in a $98 million phased-deal to boost food production.

Now, if the latest scheme manages to avoid the traps that ensnared the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s much bigger project a few years ago, it could represent the largest mechanisation yet by Government in recent years that directly addresses climate change adaptation in agriculture

With lots of irrigation schemes partially or not functioning, the distribution of new irrigation equipment to organised communal groups or worthy individual farmers has the potential to redefine water use, water use efficiency, production systems and yields.

Combined with such other machinery as tractors, the new irrigation equipment will not only help Zimbabwe’s drift towards sustainable, efficient farming methods that maximise production at minimum cost, but also tackle limits arising from climate change-induced rainfall shortages.

It is not clear yet how many of the 22 000 households to benefit from the Brazil deal will go on to draw direct benefit from irrigation.

But for those farmers that will, the potential to increase agriculture production becomes real, helping to boost incomes by changing production patterns from mono-type cereal cropping to integrated resources development.

With the climate changing, income generation and crop diversification have become crucial to adaptation; much in the same manner water has grown beyond being an economic resource, but the most vital natural resource.

A few years ago the Reserve Bank ran a similar scheme, distributing $200 million worth of farming equipment, but apart from tobacco, the food security situation never really improved, with a 700 000 tonne deficit of the maize staple this

year.

This was partly due to patronage and poor follow-ups on utilisation. For example, several people that accessed diesel at much subsidised rates were not real farmers at all.

They ended up pocketing huge profits selling the fuel on the black market at inflated prices.

And this is one of the many reasons the central bank assumed an unsustainable $1,3 billion debt that every Zimbabwean is today being forced to pay.

With Government recently taking over the RBZ debt, each citizen, including the baby on the breast, effectively owes whomsoever was owed by the Reserve Bank $100.

Given how the RBZ has been indicted by both citizens and Parliament in cases like this, it should come as no surprise that there is lingering uncertainty about Government’s latest scheme to mechanise agriculture.

A certain amount of skepticism is even less surprising when so much of the equipment from the previous scheme (RBZ project) benefited mostly powerful politicians (and the small fish, too) who could not be tracked or held accountable for abusing material acquired from public funds.

Now, it is important to build confidence in the new project.

To achieve its pre-determined household food security targets, Government will not only have to tightly monitor the use of distributed equipment, but also control to whom it is granted.

Zimbabwe has and is building dozens of dams for irrigation, but kick-starting the projects has proved difficult because of the large amounts of money required especially in establishing the head works, such as pumping stations and conveyance pipelines.

This year, Government plans to spend $24,4 million for the ongoing dam construction, maintenance or expansion projects at Tokwe-Mukosi, Osborne, Semwa and Mutange, according to the 2015 Budget.

For irrigation, Government has kept options open. Last year the Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa announced he was planning a $5 million climate resilient master plan for water management and irrigation, in partnership with the World Bank.

We don’t know what has happened with the master plan yet, but it aimed “to support the development of a structured programme of climate-resilient investments for the development and management of water resources and irrigation infrastructure in Zimbabwe.”

However, while we wait for the master plan, with cheap and efficient irrigation systems, communities can build strong defences against climate change-induced water shortages, already noticed to be affecting crop output, and by extension, household food security.

Obviously, irrigation is not an end in itself. It will require a lot of complementary initiatives such as the growing of drought tolerant small grains, but the technology provides as a good building block for managing and using water efficiently at a time of scarcity and future uncertainties.

The phenomena of mid-season dry spells (as seen last summer) causing severe crop failure is the major cause of droughts in Zimbabwe, worsened by farmers’ dependency on rain fed agriculture.

Zimbabwe’s economy is, and will remain for the foreseeable future, one in which agriculture plays a dominant role.

The sector currently contributes 20 percent to GDP.

However, agriculture is the hardest hit by climate change, threatening the lives and livelihoods of over 9 million people that depend on it.

Also, agriculture anchors most of the manufacturing that takes place in Zimbabwe’s industries.

Therefore, failures in the sector are more than likely to cause faults in the wider economy giving rise to widespread socio-economic losses.

With yield declines estimated to reach 50 percent by mid-century, never at any time before has tackling climate change in agriculture become more important.

And this not just from an adaptation perspective, but also mitigation. The sector is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the country, accounting for 22,8 percent of the national total.

God is faithful.

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