Posted on 08/10/2002 6:36:00 AM PDT by Clive
AS the sun sets on the disruptive land reform programme it has emerged that thousands of resettled farmers are still to take possession of their allocated pieces of land, greatly compromising Zimbabwe’s food security in the coming season.
Top government officials, Zanu PF supporters and friends and relatives of the powerful allocated land under the A1 and A2 models are still sitting on the sidelines. The model A2 scheme is the worst affected.
Agricultural analysts said good rains alone would not guarantee food security due to the absence of farmers to till the available land. Most allotees of the chaotic land reform exercise have snubbed the offer citing lack of government support and incentives to undertake a sustainable farming business.
In the A2 model only half of the 54 000 plots are understood to have been demarcated and just 20% of the pegged plots have been taken up.
The Zimbabwe Independent last weekend toured Mashonaland West province, which used to produce an estimated 40% of the country’s major crops such as the staple maize, tobacco and wheat. The fields lie idle with no production or land preparation taking place despite the fact that planting is due to start next month. Not only is the land lying fallow but state-of-the-art irrigation equipment and multi-million dollar grain storage facilities are either redundant or have been pillaged.
Officials at Lions Den silos said the facilities have not received any grain for storage since the beginning of the farm invasions two years ago.
"Grain has instead been taken out of the silos and the facilities have become a white elephant," an official said.
Commercial farmers’ representative body Justice for Agriculture (JAG) estimates that equipment worth $14,5 billion has been lost in the commercial farming sector to seizures, looting and vandalism.
"About $14,5 billion worth of movable assets have been illegally impounded or looted since February 2000 and JAG will be suing the ruling party Zanu PF after it has completed working out the total losses sustained by both farmers and farm workers," JAG said.
Makonde Rural District Council assistant administrator Dan Zvobgo said land uptake, particularly in the model A2 scheme, has been very disappointing.
"Model A2 in general has received a bad response from the new farmers because it did not take into cognisance distances farmers had to travel to their new properties," Zvobgo said.
"Applicants were allocated land anywhere in the country and that means some farmers have to travel from one end of the country to the other but those expenses are not covered."
Zvobgo said land preparation in his district and the country as a whole had been greatly hampered by the unavailability of draught power.
"We only have eight tractors running in the whole district and that is not enough to service all farmers in time for the planting season. That alone should reduce the intended hectarage under crop," he said.
"This is a common phenomenon throughout the country, no district has enough tractors to plough for the new farmers and the virgin land they are moving onto cannot be tilled with ox- drawn ploughs."
He said the situation has been worsened by the lack of spares and fuel.
Commercial Farmers Union Mashonaland West/South regional executive Ben Freeth said there was hardly any land preparation by either commercial farmers still on the land or the new occupiers.
"The new farmers do not have the requisite equipment for land preparation while commercial farmers are not preparing the land either because their future is not certain or they are being stopped by the occupiers," Freeth said.
CFU vice-president (commodities) Doug Taylor-Freeme said most of the fast-track resettled farmers were reluctant to take up the land because of lack of incentives.
"The whole of the agricultural sector has come to a standstill," Taylor-Freeme said.
"Vast tracts of fields are lying idle with new farmers facing serious financial problems but failing to borrow from the banks because of lack of clarity and security."
Taylor-Freeme said in the tobacco sector alone an estimated 60 million kilogrammes have been lost due to the delays in land preparation.
"There is no activity on the ground," he said. "Seed beds should have been planted at the beginning of June but this could not be done because of the confusion in the sector."
Prominent farmer in the Banket area, Vernon Nicolle, said the family’s farming operation had not been running at full capacity and irrigation equipment worth over $100 million was also lying idle.
"Our family can produce 10 000 tonnes of wheat under irrigation and 3 000 tonnes of maize and 3 500 tonnes of soya beans," said Nicolle.
"This year because of the disturbances we will produce only 3 000 tonnes of wheat. We harvested 1 200 tonnes of soya beans and 2 000 tonnes of maize."
There is no land preparation on Alaska Farm, Olympus Farm, Hunyani Farm or Rukoba Farm. Only a handful of settlers have built makeshift structures on these plots but no land preparation has started.
A glimmer of hope in the province was seen 11km outside Lions Den along the Mhangura Road at three properties, Emily Park, Chifundi and Gordonia, where model A1 resettled farmers have a promising wheat crop.
Farmers at Emily Park said they were looking forward to harvesting close to 20 tonnes of wheat.
"Our crop looks very good as you can see," Albert Chikwereti, one of the farmers, told the Independent.
"We just call on government to increase the loaning of inputs and draught power so that we can put more land under crop. We have the potential of doing better but the limiting factor is that we can’t borrow money since the banks want security."
Agricultural experts said the derelict condition of land in Mashonaland West was just the tip of an iceberg.
"The situation is actually much worse in other provinces," one analyst said.
"Many of the farmers who are moving onto the farms now are making efforts to beat the August 23 deadline at which government threatened to repossess all plots not yet taken up."
At Little England a few kilometres out of Banket, only two farmers out of about 200 allocated land have moved onto their properties. One farmer, the only person seen on the property, had moved in with a caravan and built a wooden cabin. Several rickety temporary structures, which were abandoned last year, are dotted across the farm.
Some model A1 farmers in the province said they were not preparing land for next season because their future was uncertain follow-ing constant threats from prominent Zanu PF figures and their cronies to remove them from the farms.
Settlers from Nyabira communal lands who settled on Golden Stairs, Sortbury and Little England farms accused provincial governor Peter Chanetsa of derailing the land reform programme by wanting to remove them from farms they had occupied for the past two years.
"Chanetsa brought riot police to forcibly evict farmers from Sortbury and Golden Stairs and this makes us question whether government wants to see us farming next season," one settler at the farm who requested anonymity said.
The settlers said Chanetsa had laid claim to six properties in the province: Gabaro Farm in Karoi, Riverside Farm in Norton, Elwin farm in Raffingora, Sligo Farm in Zvimba North, and Deary Farm in Nyabira.
Other prominent politicians embroiled in the continued farm seizures include Local Government minister Ignatius Chombo, banker Enock Kamushinda and Zimbabwe’s ambassador to Washington Simbi Mubako who is currently making inroads to occupy the 1 200-hectare Between Rivers Farm.
Zimbabwe Farmers Union’s pre- sident Silas Hungwe confirmed his organisation was aware that the majority of the land allocated had not been taken up because of lack of incentives and financial support.
"We urge the new farmers to occupy their plots since failure to do so will put government in a dilemma on whether it has resettled genuine or cellphone farmers," Hungwe said.
Chombo last week told the press that in Matabeleland South, only 117 model A2 farmers have been allocated land from a possible 2 259 who had qualified for the plots.
The problems in the agricultural sector have been compounded by the stance taken by banks which last week spurned Lands and Agriculture minister Joseph Made’s efforts to force them to fund the land reform programme to the tune of $160 billion for this season’s crop. The money is for tillage and the purchase of agricultural inputs like fertiliser, seed and chemicals.
There are less than two months to go before the onset of the rains but Zimbabwe’s promised land rainbow has not appeared.
Prices rocket as controls fail Godfrey Marawanyika/Stanley James
ZIMBABWE'S price control system, designed to create stability in the cost of goods and services, has failed resulting in shortages of controlled commodities on shop shelves and a thriving parallel market on the streets bursting with supplies of the same goods. A spate of price increases in the last two months has fuelled the inflation rate to an unprecedented 122,5%. The Zanu PF government based its presidential election campaign on the land issue and maintaining price controls. The controls have been in force since October.
The controls represented a shift from market-oriented policies to a command economy, introduced to protect the interests of the ruling Zanu PF party against growing isolation by donor agencies like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Zimbabwe has experienced a surge of price increases for goods such as bread, sugar, cooking oil, milk and transport fares shortly after the disputed victory of President Robert Mugabe in the March presidential poll. More increases are on the way.
Products under the controls regime have become scarce in most retail outlets but are in abundance on the black market.
"For price controls to work, government has to put in place subsidies to cushion manufacturers against production and price disparities," said one analyst with a leading commercial bank.
"Salaries have not been rising in tandem with price increases, pushing most salaried workers against the wall."
This has been evidenced by a 60% drop in the purchasing power of the ordinary consumer during the first quarter of 2002, a situation projected to worsen against a background of soaring inflation.
Although the minimum wage has remained pegged at $8 600 a month, economists have said the poverty datum line for a family of six should be $30 000.
Zimbabwe's growing debt and poor credit rating have resulted in a massive flight of capital and the country's skewed land policies and refusal to respect human rights and the rule of law have earned it a pariah status.
Government has failed to rein-in the budget deficit and is continuously borrowing from the domestic market to fund day- to-day operations. Domestic debt has risen to $300 billion and foreign debt now stands at US$800 million.
Due to the erosion of purchasing power and incomes, the country has also witnessed the mushrooming of money- lending institutions as people struggle to make ends meet.
"These institutions have devised a way of avoiding the controlled interest rates," said the analyst.
Economic commentator Tony Hawkins said the ultimate result of the price controls would be more shortages and a boom in black market activities resulting in further price increases.
"There is no way the price control system will create stability in price levels given the current economic hardships," Hawkins said.
He said the price control regime posed the threat of a shrinking industrial base as price ceilings did not match cost outlays.
He warned the country risked losing investment opportunities as most investors were wary of the controls that have cut into the bottom line.
"The controls have failed to serve the purpose they were intended for because of the prevailing hyper-inflationary trends that have reduced the purchasing power of ordinary consumers," he said.
"While technically the introduction of price controls was noble, government failed to do its homework in time because they wanted to survive politically - which they did - but they have failed to curtail the black market," said an analyst with a Harare discount house.
"The sprouting of the black market is a clear indication of government's failure." The Central Statistical Office (CSO), which monitors inflation trends, has said the escalating cost of living was being driven by the wave of price hikes.
The CSO said that as of the beginning of the year, prices of various goods surged by almost 60% thereby eroding the purchasing power of consumers by about 40%. It said the ideal salary for a family of six should be around $25 000.
According to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, the decline in spending patterns had resulted in the value of the local currency unit dropping by almost 600% over the past decade. The value of the $1 coin today is now about six cents compared to 1996.
Hawkins said that such a drop showed price controls were not the real mechanisms to foster price stability as they created a cost-push inflationary environment.
University of Zimbabwe economist Dr Phineas Kadenge said price controls had failed as evidenced by the current shortages of goods.
"A number of companies have suspended or scaled down production processes as a result of low returns arising from the controls," Kadenge said.
He said the real solution lay in government subsidising companies to ensure they continued realising profit otherwise the impact of the price controls would always be in the form of price increases and shortages.
Kadenge said it was imperative for economic stakeholders to come up with a framework that promoted the reduction of costs of production for companies currently facing difficulties owing to the deteriorating economic environment.
The Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries has said price increases have brought with them the shrinkage in productive sectors, escalating costs of production and a decline in output levels for various economic sectors.
Industrialists a fortnight ago petitioned the Ministry of Industry and International Trade for a review of prices in tandem with the volatile economic environment. High on the agenda of the petition was a proposal to adjust prices of food commodities upwards as the controlled prices were hampering production and leading to shortages. There has not been any response to date from Industry and Trade minister Dr Herbert Murerwa. Kadenge warned that the imminent review of prices was likely to deal another body blow to consumers hard-pressed with other economic hardships owing to the macro-economic policies of the embattled Mugabe government.
The concerns come against a backdrop of some 700 company closures between the year 2000 and 2002. One of the country's former blue-chip sectors - tourism - has seen at least 100 closures since January.
"It would have been prudent if government had consulted industry before they implemented the price controls," said one industrialist.
"As it is now, we cannot plan for the future because we do not know what we will be told on what to produce and how much to produce. For some of us in the food and beverages sector, we will be forced to retrench and relocate to more accommodating economies," he said.
Harare-based economist Howard Sithole said the price controls were designed to protect the consumers, "but these have been hurt most because of the scarcity of the products, especially basic commodities".
"Consumers have actually been hit twice, because they spend a lot of time in queues waiting for goods which are non-existent, and where available, are beyond their reach. Consumers have been affected most by the prices controls."
Before that, Cuba had a thriving fruit and vegetable business that provided the country with food as well as exports.
Castro was no agriculture expert. Many tinhorn dictators, upon ascension to power, suddenly become experts about everything.
Cuba suffered greatly and soon went from a food exporting nation to a net food importing nation.
Ideology can't feed a nation. As in Africa, stupid is as stupid does!
It begs the question of whether a brave man with a BMG .50 could start to reverse this tide.
With no means to produce either food or revenue, and with hoards of displaced persons organized into what I'd guess are autonomous gangs; a small army with light armor would run it's ass ragged trying to keep up with one provence.
The place is a loss and I'd personally doubt that SA can me saved over the next couple of years.
If you mean that the collapse of Zim cannot be halted - I agree with you. But they will have to rebuild someday and the sooner they get rid of Mugabe and his cronies, the better. I agree with you about SA too.
Mesmerized by a Dictator's whims and clouded dreams went the labors of a lifetime to the spoiled, lazy wannabe farmers of Zimbabwe. This blotched government should be removed and farms returned to the rightful owners who know how to farm and the banks can trust.
Zimbabwians are for the most part too young to even know that they were better off living under the Rhodesian system that they rose up to overthrow. But hey, if Europe gives them enough handouts of money and food, they can go another year without doing any of that dreaded "work" that they have come to loathe.
They have been avoiding even the mention of Africa since they realized they'd be asked for money, instead of receiving money.
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