Combining lessons from smallholder and commercial farming can produce a viable model
Charles Dhewa
Zimbabwean agriculture continues to be dominated by two main voices. The first voice advocates large scale industrial production as the only way agriculture can feed the nation and ensure formal employment through boosting local manufacturing. This approach is embraced by private contract companies and other big institutions. The second voice supports smallholder production with a strong view that if properly coordinated and aggregated, smallholder producers can, not only feed the nation but, also ensure enough surplus for employment creation through manufacturing.
A string of NGOs in the agriculture sector seem to subscribe to this voice. Those in the large scale industrial production camp are convinced that agricultural success will come from giant leaps while those in the smallholder camp are convinced agricultural success can result from small incremental steps which do not radically change the agricultural status quo in terms of upsetting grassroots ways of doing things.
Towards a hybrid model
Since both camps seem to have valid positions, there are opportunities to fuse the two voices and come up with a hybrid agricultural production model. In fact, this is already happening as revealed by how smallholder farmers co-exist with large scale farmers. We need an entirely new mind set for combining giant leaps and a series of small steps. Each voice has its strengths and weakness.
Small incremental agricultural steps are preferred by some organisations and policy makers because the approach does not upset prevailing practices.
However, this assumes steps followed by smallholder production are sensible, yet difficulties of coordinating smallholder agriculture for both local food security and the market present this issue as a rather messy challenge. There is enough proof that slow, comfortable processes may not result in desired agricultural change because it will take many years for farmers and other actors to achieve success. A valid point from those advocating giant agricultural leaps is that it allows fast learners and early adopters to innovate quickly while optimally using available knowledge. Given the lack of capacity to process and interpret available knowledge, smallholder agriculture does not respond quickly to situations.
The status quo in most farming communities and formal agricultural organisations does not recognise the importance of knowledge. An agriculture-driven economy can only be built by action-oriented producers who prefer giant steps to a series of shuffles from one state to another. Giant leaps allow top learners to take learning from everywhere and deal with both production and market challenges. Increasing our yield levels may not happen through small baby steps but giant leaps in both thinking and agricultural practice.
Why combining giant leaps and small incremental steps
The messy nature of challenges facing Zimbabwean agriculture calls for a holistic agriculture framework that marries big steps and small steps. Challenges facing our agricultural sector cut across all categories of farmers. This was revealed by eMKambo’s recent efforts to identify challenges and solutions to Zimbabwean agriculture as shown in table above:
The role of knowledge in agricultural transformation
To the extent that agricultural transformation is about challenging the status quo, knowledge is critical in coming up with game-changing ideas. Our agriculture sector is desperate for world class competence and performance by farmers and other actors. While many people agree that knowledge is a resource in building a strong agricultural economy, very few are good at managing that resource. Common symptoms of knowledge mismanagement in most agricultural organisations include:
No time spent capturing knowledge gained from projects.
No time devoted to seeking knowledge to help inform plans and decisions.
Crucial knowledge is left in the heads of people and lost when those people retire.
Critical knowledge is stored in databases to which the rest of the organisation has no access.
Staff members are rewarded for hoarding knowledge into personal assets instead of sharing it.
If this knowledge challenge is prevalent in fairly educated organisations, what about in farming communities where levels of illiteracy are high? The good thing is that farmers realise that knowledge can be a creative force that shapes them as human collectives. There is a correlation between success and communities which manage knowledge and information properly.
Access to reliable information remains the difference between rich and poor farmers. On the other hand, agricultural investors want to identify where there is life in a particular agricultural ecosystem.
Therefore developing agriculture in one isolated part of the community does not lure investors who may be mostly interested in how production is connected with markets in ways that ensure growth while opening up new agricultural industries. If properly harnessed, such an investment can start showing positive outcomes within a short period of time. The main question is how are we going to prioritise if agricultural investment avenues start opening?
A sensible starting point could be a tripartite agribusiness arrangement driven by the private sector. The people’s market has become very small for all our agricultural commodities. That is why processing is becoming a major priority because we cannot consumer all raw products flowing into the market daily. Processing and value addition will assist in distributing power to producers who will not have to sell in a hurry as a desperate measure. At the moment there is too much desperate selling due to the perishable nature of most commodities, among other factors.
Charles Dhewa is a proactive knowledge management specialist and chief executive officer of Knowledge Transfer Africa (Pvt) (www.knowledgetransafrica.com) whose flagship eMKambo (www.emkambo.co.zw) has a presence in more than 20 agricultural markets in Zimbabwe. He can be contacted on: [email protected] ; Mobile: +263 774 430 309 / 772 137 717/ 712 737 430.