We are lifting a centuries-old curse

12 Jun, 2022 - 00:06 0 Views
We are lifting a centuries-old curse

The Sunday Mail

There was a time in 2009 and 2010 when our supermarkets were brimming with ostrich-sized chickens that were retailing at unbelievable and embarrassingly low prices.

For only US$2, one could buy a kilogramme of these monster birds, most of which were imported from our neighbours in South Africa.

It was less than half the extortionate price of locally produced chickens, which were selling for anything between US$4 and US$5 for the same quantity.

And then there were those relatively smaller frozen full chickens from Brazil sold at ridiculously give-away prices of between US$3,50 and US$4.

It was actually a steal.

Come to think of it, this was absolutely preposterous.

How could the landing price of a bird reared, processed, packaged and transported from more than 8 500 kilometres away — often with the inherent costs that come with cold chain logistics — fetch even half the price of those produced in our own backyards?

Well, this was the bane of dollarisation.

There was conceivably no way local birds could have been competitive considering production costs — from feeds, utility costs, among others — were all in US dollars.

Those who have long memories like Bishop Lazi would remember that it got so bad for local poultry producers that they actively lobbied Government to ban poultry imports in 2010.

Authorities obliged in April the same year, but not before rescinding the decision after inefficient local producers began doing what they know best — robbing consumers blind.

But there was one thing about South African-imported chickens that didn’t quite endear themselves with local consumers.

While they might have looked “beefy” – excuse the language — the moment they were put in the oven or pot, they instantly desaturated and shrank from the huge meaty boulders that they seemed to be into disappointingly deflated small chickeny mounds.

Apparently, as it later turned out, the cheeky poultry producers would inject chicken carcasses with a brine saltwater solution to levels as high as 40 percent ostensibly to ensure succulence and flavour.

During cooking, this briny solution would seep out, leaving the actual meat content at between 60 to 70 percent of the original weight. Kikikiki

It was a scam, and many of our people became to loosely and derisively refer to the birds as GMO chickens.

 Focus

Ignorantly and happily gorging on chickens produced from as far afield as Turkey and Brazil, and bought using seriously scarce foreign currency in an economy that was at the time struggling to produce even the most basic of commodities, has to definitely count as one of the low points in the history of our teapot-shaped Republic.

Of course, irredeemable ignoramuses, especially those who nostalgically think the colonial administration was the best thing that ever happened to natives, when they actually were too young to understand anything, will never know the insidiously deleterious impact the US dollar had on our economy.

The Bishop always argues that except for new retail outlets that conveniently mushroomed to mop up US dollars from Zimbabwe and the respite it afforded weary consumers, dollarisation did not do us any good insofar as transformative and sustainable development is concerned.

Show Bishop Lazi one meaningful shop or factory, road, dam, clinic constructed during the dollarisation era and he will show you a pig that can fly. Kikikiki.

Even as Finance Minister, the motor-mouth Tendai Biti, despite his hubris-inspired bluster, failed to complete that miniature Mukuvisi Bridge along Simon Mazorodze that took almost an eternity to complete. He was even thoroughly displeased with progress himself and used to incessantly complain about the tortoise pace contractors were taking to complete the project.

And these are people who now promise us bullet trains. Kikikiki.

In terms of food security, we also didn’t fare any better under the Inclusive Government (2009 to 2013), as maize output serially failed to meet demand.

In 2009, output came in at a mere 650 000 tonnes, before rising somewhat to average one million tonnes in 2010, 2011 and 2012.

In 2013, it slumped again to about 850 000 tonnes, a million tonnes short of what we need for human consumption.

For perspective, the country needs 1,8 million tonnes and dismally failed to meet that target during subsistence of that curious creature called Inclusive Government.

Families had to make do with unusual imported mealie-meal from South Africa, some of which carried age ratings as American sleazy movies. Kikiki.

Well, maize output only recovered in 2013 when farmers produced 1,5 million tonnes — and we need not remind you what had happened during elections in that year — before further rising to 2,1 million tonnes in 2017, and again we need not remind you of who superintended over Command Agriculture then.

You might remember that some shameless and ambitious politicians began jostling to take credit for this impressive performance. Kikikiki.

Last year, output jumped to a near-record 2,7 million tonnes.

And don’t get the Bishop started on wheat, whose output was worse than abysmal during Biti’s tenure as purse-bearer.

In 2009, output was 48 000 tonnes when the nation needed about 360 000 tonnes, before dropping to 41 000 tonnes, 53 000 tonnes, an embarrassing 34 000 tonnes and 39 000 tonnes in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013, respectively.

Fast forward to 2021, under President ED, the same man responsible for the 2017 harvest, Zimbabwe managed to produce a staggering 330 000 tonnes.

So, the next time they talk about Biti as the best Treasury chief Zimbabwe has ever had, show them these statistics.

 Hungry man of the world

For the Bishop, memories of Brazilian and South African chickens came flooding back when he saw stories in Western media patronisingly casting Africans as the unfortunate, innocent victims whose basket-case status was likely to make them the people who would suffer the most for Russia’s supposed invasion of Ukraine.

While the West is similarly smarting from soaring commodity prices and shortages, the narrative, which was carefully planted before African Union (AU) chair Macky Sall’s visit to Russia on June 3, was meant to appeal to racial sensibilities and stereotypes that Africans are a hopeless case that perpetually depends on alms and handouts from a gracious world.

Never mind the racial connotations, it high time the continent works on lifting the “Malthusian curse.”

You see, in 1798, Thomas Malthus, a British economist, wrote a famous essay postulating that the human population would eventually grow rapidly than the world’s ability to grow food, leading to mass starvation.

Of course, with hindsight, he clearly did not budget for technological advancements and research that would result in an exponential growth in agricultural production and productivity.

Sadly, this has not been the case in Africa, where countries continue to import grain from Mexico, Ukraine, Russia, among other countries, and sunflower and palm oil from distant markets such as Argentina and Indonesia.Yet farmers on the continent are still impoverished, industrial production is muted and fertile lands lie fallow.

Something surely has to give!

The Lord has already given us the means.

Genesis 1:29 says: “Then God said, ‘I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food’.”

Deuteronomy 28:12 add: “The Lord will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none.”

Vision

Not many realise that Brazil, which at one time supplied us with poultry, used to systematically receive food aid from abroad until the 1960s.

Even by 1980, it was still a large food importer, but it consciously implemented ambitious and aggressive agrarian reforms that resultantly changed its status from a net importer to the world’s breadbasket.

Between 1996 and 2006, its crop output rose by close to 400 percent and it became one of the world’s largest grain exporters.

Much of the success was driven by increased financing, support to extension services, mechanisation and agricultural research coordinated by the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa).

Over the past couple of years, we have learnt from disruptions occasioned by the coronavirus pandemic and the recent Russia-Ukraine conflict that food self-sufficiency is now an exigency.

Fortunately, owing to visionary leadership, we have already made a head start.

Even before assuming the reins, ED has always been clear that we need to switch from rain-fed agriculture, mechanise the sector, expand ploughable land under irrigation to 350 000 hectares and increase production per unit area to guarantee sustainable food security.

This is already happening through land that is being opened up in Kanyemba (Mashonaland Central), Tugwi-Mukosi (Masvingo), Chivhu, Chilonga, Bulawayo Kraal (Binga) and resuscitation of irrigation schemes.

There has also been targeted support to extension services around the country.

And the results have been there for all to see. In four short years, wheat output has more than doubled from 158 000 tonnes to the remarkable 330 000 tonnes in 2021.

Similarly, maize harvests have jumped from 2,1 million tonnes to 2,7 million tonnes in the same period.

With the work that is happening behind the scenes, the trend will continue.

We are well on our way to achieve food self-sufficiency.

As the Lord says, we will eventually lend to many nations but borrow from none.

Bishop out!

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