Allocation of land is very haphazard, basically on a first-come-first-grab basis although communities normally accept that certain families have what amounts to a prescriptive right to a plot, having farmed there last year and probably for many years before that.

Some of the families do the farming well. They use decent seed and apply fertiliser and plant in time. Others take a chance with late planting, and try and improve fertility by using burned-out land, and veld fires are common in urban areas, or even burn the residue of last year’s meagre crop themselves.

You see the difference later on when some maize grows green and strong and other maize is short, spindly, yellow and cobless.

Meanwhile rural plotholders are using modern farming methods, getting certified by Agritex and latching onto the Pfumvudza inputs schemes, being ready to plant by the middle of this month, at the latest, and pretty well guaranteed a decent harvest.

The gap is growing in both technical expertise and in resources.

It need not be like this. As was stressed in Parliament this week by Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Monica Mutsvangwa, in her capacity as acting Leader of Government business during the weekly question session, urban farmers are eligible for Pfumvudza.

The problem is turning that right into practice. Here city councils need to be far more active. In theory farming on empty council land is forbidden and at times council staff have moved onto plots and slashed the maize.

Usually the farming is tolerated, in the sense that the maize is not slashed, but all sorts of warning are made.

Bulawayo once went far beyond this. Recognising that many families could upgrade their standards of living with some weekend work, an ad hoc allocation was done.

Council workers would move onto open spaces with a basket of whitewashed bricks and, carefully avoiding streambanks, drop bricks to outline small plots.

Those wanting to farm would go to the district office, be given a plot number and could farm.

It cost the city almost nothing and ensured some sort of regulation. The allocations were only for a season, since the land could well be needed for something else later, but while it was there is was used, properly.

The same sort of system is now needed everywhere. If it was done in, say, Harare then people could have a definite six-month allocation that they could use to be registered for Pfumvudza.

They would have to undergo training and then dig the holes and gather the mulch, rather than burning it, get signed off and collect their inputs, usually a very small quantity for just one plot.

But at least they would have decent maize, rather than stringy yellow plants, and the land would be improved rather than damaged by the farming.

Pure wetlands and stream banks could be better protected as now it would be possible to stop people planting in the first place.

To some extent the protection is already being applied. Some seed houses were creating demonstration plots, with signs, but on protected land.

After some heavy pressure from the Environmental Protection Agency this blatant breach of the law was stopped, but the wetlands are still invaded.

There is nothing wrong with temporary allocation of open space that will one day, when our societies and so our cities are richer, become parks and sports fields.

This was common in much of Europe while that continent was developing with formal allotments on very short allocations. These were used to grow vegetables and the like, and helped many European cities get through the World Wars when food was short.

Considering what we have seen in Harare over the past couple of decades under MDC rule, there would regrettably have to be an auditable system to allocate the plots, otherwise councillors and officials would be renting out the land for bribes or allocating to their relatives and friends, but this could be done at little cost.

Town planners and developers know where available suitable land can be found that will be undisturbed for a season and the plots do not need to be formally surveyed.

Pacing out the dimensions with four bricks would work adequately along with a little marker with the plot number for identification.

At the very least this would ensure that the land was properly looked after, trees remained unfelled, weeds were cleared and garbage not dumped. And all that would be done by the temporary plotholder with no ratepayer money being spent.

It might be asking a lot from councils that seem unable to enforce existing town planning laws, let alone collect garbage regularly, to do this but it would only require a few days work from a couple of honest officials at each district office and surely those can be found, especially if the community itself was willing to help and just needed the officials to help set boundaries and register allocations.

Technically some of those who own or rent larger plots, and we see good stands of maize growing on some of these even in the poshest suburbs, could benefit from Pfumvudza.

In any case, even if they are buying their own seed and fertiliser, they might well find that the modern conservation farming techniques are worth acquiring so if Agritex organised a few training sessions in urban areas they would have people turning up.

What Minister Mutsvangwa was stressing in Parliament is that the Government is not dividing people. Everyone can benefit from the programmes regardless of who they are or where they live so long as they join the system.

Councils can, with minimal effort, give the practical support that would allow a reasonable fraction of their residents to be able to join a Government scheme.