The Sunday News
IN Zimbabwe, opposition politics has always thrived on people’s stomachs. Hunger and poverty have always been the opposition’s political trump card as they employed the aphorism, “a hungry man is an angry man”.
They have not known a proper political manifesto but this year owing to successful agrarian reforms revolving around the Land Reform Programme that they have collectively been demonising they are in for big wake-up call. This comes after the Government introduced Command Agriculture as part of the greater agrarian reforms drawing inspiration from the historic land reform where the systematic dispossession and alienation of the land from indigenous people were adequately addressed.
The agrarian reforms satisfy the political, economic and social gains of independence and according to Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister Dr Joseph Made the country now faces a headache of storage as the national silos needed to be repaired.
Admittedly, it has not been a walk in the park for the country as it has always been alert to neo-colonial threats that have always been lurking in the background with the former colonial power Britain and its allies collectively fighting to regain and gold coat their super status in the well resourced Southern African country.
A bumper harvest both in communal and commercial farms is expected this season courtesy of the timely intervention by the Government through an import substitution-led industrialisation concept commonly known as the Command Agriculture programme. Initially a figure of $500 million was set for Command Agriculture programme although statistics later proved that only $190 million was used. The programme saw large tracts of land being put under maize with the Government providing all the inputs. The programme like so many Government programmes had its own share of criticism from those whose eyes see nothing good in whatever the Government does.
Some confused it with command economy — an economy wide system where government determines what goods and services should be produced and the price at which the goods are sold and were quick to dismiss the programme as a failure even before it started but this did not dampen the spirit of the Government.
It has become used to such uninformed critics; some of which are sponsored by Western agents of regime change. And now they are eating humble pie. The programme has become a huge success and the country finds itself preparing the silos that have not known grain for a number of years owing to consecutive failed agricultural seasons due to drought. The scheme targeted farmers near water bodies who could put a minimum of 200 hectares under maize per individual but nature also intervened as the rains were bountiful and anyone who put seed under the soil is going to harvest something.
This was after the Government realised that maize production in the country that was plummeting owing to a variety of factors should rebound to satisfy the domestic market and avert the burden of importing from the Treasury.
The farmers were found to be 2 000 in total and each farmer was required to produce at least 1 000 tonnes of maize.
Each participating farmer was required to commit 5 tonnes per hectare towards repayment of advanced loans in the form of irrigation equipment, inputs and chemicals, mechanised equipment, electricity and water charges. Under the programme farmers would retain a surplus product produced in excess of the 1 000 tonnes and each farmer will be earmarked to receive US$250 000.
The success story of Command Agriculture justifies the Land Reform Programme and showed that with the necessary support and enough rain, the country can produce for itself and even for export. Apart from justifying the Land Reform Programme that corrected the historical colonial imbalances in the distribution of land which was among the prime causes of the war of liberation, the success story of Command Agriculture will among other things result in huge foreign currency savings as Government will no longer be importing and money can be saved for other essentials such as capital projects with a national outlook.
It is also against the successes of the programme born out of the land reform which was a direct by-product of the war of independence that will also trigger massive economic growth in the largely agriculture — linked industries.
It also means a reduction in prices of such basic items as mealie-meal and other cereals that the country was now importing.
The import substitution is therefore not only limited to maize but to its other products while companies doing stock feed and other line companies will be revived.
Command Agriculture therefore is one of the major programmes that seek to consolidate the gains of independence by giving tone to the land reform which proved to be a big leap by the country in addressing the racially skewed agricultural land ownership pattern that was inherited at independence. The land ownership according to the Ministry of Lands and Rural Resettlement was such that large scale white commercial farmers consisting less than one percent of the population occupied 45 percent f agricultural land.
Seventy-five percent of the land was in the high rainfall areas of the country where potential for agriculture production was high. A significant 60 percent of the large scale commercial land was not merely under-utilised but wholly unutilised. At the turn of the millennium, the country embarked on the land reform to correct the historical imbalances after the British Government reneged on the issue of land with years of bickering.
The land reform was followed by other agrarian reforms involving restructuring of access to land and an overall transformation of the existing farming system, institutions and structures. It also included opening up the once closed markets for indigenous people in the agricultural sector, credits, training and access to social, developmental and economic amenities that sought to enhance agricultural productivity, with the objective of achieving industrial and economic empowerment and macro-economic growth in the long term.
Prior to the land reform the country’s black population used to be crammed in small and rocky pieces of land that were not suitable for agriculture. Areas such as the Gwaai and Shangani reserves where the black population were packed like sardines were devoid of plenty in terms of agriculture productivity. They were areas where stones grew better than plants and where rainfall rarely visited.
According to the Ministry of Lands, the Land Apportionment Act of 1930 set aside 51 percent of land for a few thousand white settlers and prohibited the indigenous people from owning and occupying lands in white commercial farming areas. The African Purchase Areas were created between the Indigenous reserve areas and the Commercial white settlers’ areas. The indigenous reserves became known as Tribal Trust Lands following the gazetting of the Act in 1965, whose title was later changed to communal areas in terms of the Communal Lands Act of 1981. This situation therefore witnessed the creation of three separate categories of land classification in Zimbabwe namely the Communal Areas, Small Scale Commercial and Large Scale Commercial Areas. Arda-Trek estate at Maphisa Growth Point in Kezi has an amazing 480 hectares of maize crop that has matured. And according to the estate manager Mr Alec Chinyai they are looking at a yield of not less than 10 tonnes per hectare which is double the projected yield of five tonnes the government has set for farmers under Command Agriculture.
“We planted 480 hectares of maize under the Government’s Command Agriculture. We are very happy that the crop is quite impressive and we are anticipating a yield of more than ten tonnes per ha. The rains helped us so much because we have not irrigated the crop from the 9th of December up until it matured. The rains therefore saved us electricity. As you can see the crop is mature now and we are sure of getting our targeted yield,” said Mr Chinyai.
He said Command Agriculture had actually surpassed its target and Government was no longer going to import maize, adding that they intended to put 750 hectares of land under wheat come winter under Command Agriculture, something that he said was going to make the importation of flour a thing of the past.
