Perspective Stephen Mpofu
WHEN the Government embarked on the land reform programme in 2000, the move gave Zimbabweans both a feeling and the reality of ownership of the single most important national asset over which gallant sons and daughters of the soil had sacrificed their precious lives during the armed struggle to wrest the land from an otherwise intractable grip of a racist, foreign ruling culture.
At the same time the agrarian revolution sought to address food security concerns as the Government and anyone else must have realised that empty bellies remaining prevalent in large numbers in the country, might precipitate instability, thereby nullifying the newly acquainted values of independence, freedom and peace.
[It is an indisputable fact that hungry people are angry people.]
Yet chaos caused in the skies above by irresponsible human activity has left Zimbabweans and other nations under a dark cloud of uncertainty over their future.
When humanity reels under catastrophic or near catastrophic changes in weather patterns, as is being experienced by people in many parts of the world today due to climate change, practical action should supersede any giant rhetorical steps to make the world a better place for humankind to live.
Over the years mindless or irresponsible human activity has seen dangerous carbon gases being spewed into the atmosphere from unmodified factory chimneys, especially in the developed world, with owners reluctant to carry out modifications for fear that their goods would become more expensive and less competitive on the international market.
Power stations using coal as a source of energy have also dangerously polluted the atmosphere with the result that trapped by carbon gases and so unable to bounce back from earth the sun’s rays have heated up the globe to dangerous levels, spawning floods and droughts that also affect Africa even though the continent contributes minimal damage to global warming.
As if global warming was not enough, Zimbabwe and other African countries are experiencing an aggravated climate change by El Nino, a weather phenomenon triggered by the warming up of Pacific Ocean waters and resulting in flash floods that have washed away crops, leaving behind millions of people short of food closer to home, in Malawi, and elsewhere in Africa.
Under the recurrent El Nino induced droughts in Zimbabwe crops aborted germination, or popped up their withered heads only to be incinerated by the searing heat before maturity, leaving the Government with no option but to import food now being distributed to the needy in various parts of the country.
But thanks to El Nino, the Government has had to revisit Zimbabwe’s food security needs by reviewing land reform to discover any gaps in it that need to be eradicated, so that money being spent on food imports may be channelled towards other, important national needs.
Targeted Command Agriculture involving the use of water bodies across the country is the new input into the agrarian revolution.
Under this programme 2,000 farmers will be provided with farming equipment and inputs to produce two million tonnes of grain in winter and summer, according to Vice-President Cde Emmerson Mnangagwa at the launch of the National De-silting Programme in Musengezi, Mashonaland West province, last week.
He said 200 farmers would be identified from each of Zimbabwe’s 10 provinces and be supported with inputs including chemicals, seeds and equipment with each farmer expected to produce five tonnes of produce including maize and wheat from each hectare and with a provision for the farmers to retain the output in excess of the targeted threshold. The retention of the excess output, this pen humbly believes, will incentivise the farmers to put in their all knowing that any bonus produce will be theirs to keep.
Cde Mnangagwa said Government had agreed that all those living near dams be given the necessary support to use the water in producing food for the nation but that those reluctant to participate in the programme should move away to other places.
It is also the thesis of this discourse that no one should exercise the volition to opt out of a national course in this country – and food production is such a course.
Now let us suppose that the same people who turn their backs on the targeted new agricultural program run out of food and send out an SOS for help. Will the Government plug its ears and proceed as if everything is normal, thereby reneging on its repeated commitment, reiterated on many occasions, that no Zimbabwean will die of hunger?
In any case what happens, for instance, should those too lazy to contribute to National Food Security run out of food in their new safe zone?
It is no exaggeration to suggest that for many Zimbabweans the Government’s pledge to feed hungry people is cast out not in stone rather than in sand and any falling back on their commitment by the State is likely to cast the Government’s image in an invidious position.
Which therefore suggests that everyone without exception must be involved in programs aimed at feeding every hungry mouth in the county.
Since water bodies have now been brought to the fore in food production, a countrywide survey might reveal a shocking state in which irresponsible human activity has left some of these water reservoirs. It is possible that some lakes and dams may already have become crossing points as a result of rampant alluvial gold mining by reckless fortune-hunters as well as by mindless stream-bank farmers.
A need arises therefore for strict surveillance of the water bodies to ensure that they are kept environmentally safe and protected with stiff sanctions for those endangering the security of the water bodies.
It is probably necessary for people around the country to be made to claim ownership of existing dams and rivers around them so that they protect these national assets under the supervision of chiefs who will brook no nonsense from environmental vandals.
It might also be necessary for new dams to be built in provinces where none exist at present in order to maximise food production.
Chiefs should also play the role of stewards over woodlands under their jurisdiction so that trees, which play the important role of absorbing and sinking carbon gases in mitigation against global warming and climate change are protected from the axe, as should the grass from veld fires that leave the soil exposed to erosion and with its nutrients burnt out.
This pen believes that when people realise that in these days of unpredictable seasons caused by changes in climatic conditions dams and lakes are synonymous with their very lives and those of their livestock, they will do everything in their power to protect the environment and with that the welfare of Zimbabwe as a nation.
Aluta continua.