The Sunday Mail
A thorough land audit is essential if we are to ensure that land is used productively. However, we must first agree what we will do with the potential findings.
It was probably not a coincidence that Zanu PF’s Zim Asset economic recovery blueprint set “Food Security and Nutrition” first among its four development clusters and the previous farming season just gave the agricultural season a production momentum which should not be allowed to slow down.
The country is expected to produce about 1,4 million tonnes of the staple maize crop this season compared to 1 million tonnes in the 2011/12 cropping season.
This still leaves the nation with a deficit of 600 000 tonnes which must be imported, with the attendant risks of bringing in genetically-modified food.
What is, however, important is that the Government is alive to the politics of the stomach and that the country cannot depend on food imports which comes at a huge cost given the limited financial resources. It is therefore important that all land is used productively.
This is why a thorough on-going land audit is vitally important.
This comes at an estimated cost of $35 million.
This is a lot of money but a worthwhile undertaking so long as something is done about its findings.
Previous audits have revealed that there are a lot of irregularities such as double allocations of land, multiple farm ownership, lack of policy clarity on the acquisition and allocation of “special sector” enterprises such as dairy farming, horticulture and conservancies, thus causing confusion and creating loopholes for greedy people who don’t have the requisite skills in these areas to plunder without production.
Surprise, surprise, the European Union is reportedly eager to help in reviving the country’s agriculture with an investment of 88 million euros and is providing about $6,5 million towards the land audit.
The land audit should also allow Government to remove people who were allocated farms but are not productive.
In fact there are reports of people who were allocated claiming that they had the resources to finance themselves but are now failing to live up to their production plans.
That should not be allowed to continue when there are now more people who are convinced that the land reform was not an election gimmick.
The land is the economy, the economy is land has transformed from an election slogan to a hard reality for thousands of tobacco farmers.
Last week’s launch of a $2,4 billion agricultural revolving facility by Zanu PF should be a boon for the sector especially as it targets the youth who have borne the brunt of a high unemployment rate.
What is needed is to ensure that those who benefit have the capacity and skills to produce to be able to repay the money for the fund to be sustainable.
It is the unfortunate nature of our politics that while Zanu PF youths are embracing programmes which seek to empower them, we have MDC-T youths on the other hand plotting demonstrations “over mounting economic hardships”.
While it is their democratic right to demonstrate, what is not self-evident is the motive and the expected outcome.
Speaking at the launch of the agricultural revolving facility on Thursday, Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister Dr Joseph Made said Zimbabweans should produce enough to be able to export. Instead, this would obviate the need to import GMOs which have a negative impact on local crop and seed varieties.
The Minister of State in the Office of the President Didymus Mutasa told the same function that it was time for full utilisation of all acquired land, pointing out, “We do not want to have to import maize from Zambia and South Africa when there are capable farmers here.”
However, the Grain Marketing Board presents another funding headache for Government. It has perennially failed to pay farmers on time.
Farmers have so far delivered 10 000 tonnes of maize to the GMB which has not been paid for.
The maize is valued at $3,9 million but Treasury has released only $2,1 million. Meanwhile, farmers are still owed $1,7 million for maize delivered last season while the GMB says at least $100 million is required to purchase 250 000 tonnes.
The payment challenges leave farmers exposed to unscrupulous private buyers and millers.
The Government has set a maize producer price of $395 per tonne against more than $400 demanded by farmers. Private millers are offering about $200 per tonne, half of what farmers require if their enterprises are to remain viable. But they have limited options because while the GMB offer is closer to what they want, it can’t pay on time.
But agriculture is a pillar of Zim Asset’s “Food Security and Nutrition” development cluster which Government can ignore at its own peril. In fact, all other sectors, while important in themselves, are in aid of food self-sufficiency. Zimbabwe should not be allowed to go hungry again because farmers are not being paid.
What use is there in earning foreign currency from tobacco and mineral exports and then spending it on importing what we should be producing as a country?
Instead, the precious foreign currency so earned should be directed towards funding the other clusters of the Zim Asset programme in partnership with foreign investors.
Zimbabweans have amply demonstrated this past season that with the correct weather forecasts, access to affordable seed, fertiliser and draught power, they are able to produce enough for the nation.
The past few years have shown how dangerous donor dependency can be, and very demeaning too.
Opportunists have used these food donations to lecture our people about the folly of the land reform and why white commercial farmers are indispensable to Zimbabwe’s economic well-being.
Another sector which is slowly being killed through what amounts to criminal neglect is wheat farming.
The allure of money from tobacco is breeding dangerous national complacency about the success of the land reform programme, even as it has exposed its catastrophic ramifications through the reckless clearing of indigenous forests to cure the crop.
Even at the best of times, apparently Zimbabwe has never been able to produce sufficient wheat to meet annual national requirements of about 400 000 tonnes.
The highest tonnage ever produced was 325 000 in 1990, which was repeated in 2001. Since then wheat production has been in precipitous decline, hitting a record 31 000 tonnes last year.
Again that means foreign currency has to be spent importing the grain to cover the supply deficit.
At a consumption rate of at least 1 million loaves a day, wheat is virtually Zimbabwe’s second staple crop after maize.
The biggest handicap to wheat production is funding once again for fertilizer and irrigation equipment. Power shortage from Zesa has not helped matters.
The overall picture is a sad one, that somewhere we are not setting our priorities right.
Farming presents a great opportunity to create the biggest number of jobs in the short term while also meeting a critical national demand for food.
