Minister of Agriculture Joseph Made
“TO be self-sufficient, we need at least two million metric tonnes of grain in the country. Through consultations with experts, we are satisfied that if we support farmers in the production of grain and peg yield levels at five tonnes per hectare, we will need 400 000 hectares in the country. That will give us two million metric tonnes per season. This is sufficient for provision of food in the country as well as the strategic grain reserve.”
This was Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa speaking in his capacity as the chairman of a special Cabinet taskforce on food security and nutrition, explaining the rationale behind the newest programme in the country, Command Agriculture.
Under this much-hyped programme, government intends to fund a group of 2 000 farmers with a collective hectarage of 400 000 to the tune of US$500 million to produce two million tonnes of maize annually for the next three farming seasons.
Zimbabweans have heard something high-sounding like this over the past decade or so, albeit in varying permutations, but at the end of the season they have always found themselves scrounging around for grain.
The US$500 million question that every Zimbabwean should be asking is: What has changed this time around that would make this latest programme a resounding success that it is expected to be?
Certainly among the “experts” the government relied on to come up with this mouth-watering programme, is none other than Joseph Made, the man who has been in charge of the country’s agriculture sector since the year 2000 — the 15 consecutive seasons that have been the worst in the country’s farming history.
Can Made, the perennially unlucky Russian roulette player, hit the jackpot this time around?
Veteran economist, John Robertson, laughed off the Command Agriculture programme as a harebrained idea that will not yield the desired bumper harvest.
“The idea reflects a belief that government’s function is to command and the people’s obligation is to obey. The good farmers in the past were so good that what they did looked easy. Government insists that it is easy and you don’t have to be clever to do what you are told — all you need to be is obedient!” Robertson told the Financial Gazette.
He, however, pointed out that actualities on the ground were completely different from what government planners think of from the comfort of their offices because from a funding and planning point of view, this programme is already too late to be implemented in the 2016/7 cropping season.
“The realities are different. To prepare about 200 hectares for planting maize for harvesting a dry land crop next year, the farmer should have started last year. If irrigation is considered necessary, a start would have been needed a lot earlier, first getting ZESA to replace the looted cables and transformers so that the farmer can energise the new pumps, which would also be replacements for those that were looted years ago,” said Robertson.
“While these installations are in progress, the farmer would have to spend months getting together the pipes, valves, nozzles, sprinklers or centre pivots and their controllers, plus the tractors, planters, fuel, fertiliser and seed, and would need cash to pay for all these as well as enough money to pay wages to an increasing number of workers, plus a manager or two.”
The economist said since the infrastructure that is needed for the programme to deliver the optimal results is as good as non-existent, he does not see how farmers, who are currently struggling to produce half a tonne of maize per hectare can suddenly deliver the five tonnes per hectare demanded of them under this Command Agriculture programme.
“As things stand, almost nothing is in place on the farms, ZESA would need funding and many months to do the planning, tendering, installing and commissioning of connections to every property. All of this would require funding, which appears not to exist. The funding for advance payments to (the) 2 000 farmers does not exist either, and seed, fertiliser, fuel, electricity, irrigation equipment and tractor suppliers would find it impossible to offer credit when the promised payment to farmers will barely cover operating expenses and will not even touch the capital costs involved,” he said.
Robertson said the concept of Command Agriculture suits government because, when this system does not deliver the right results, the fault would lie — not with government — but with those who failed to obey the commands.
Commercial farmer and human rights activist, Ben Freeth, said the latest round of a commandist approach to farming would certainly fail just as others before it.
Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa
Freeth said to believe that the “new farmers” would have 400 000 hectares of irrigation up and running in the next three months is like waving a magic wand and claiming that Air Zimbabwe will start flying to the moon and back next year.
Air Zimbabwe, like Zimbabwean agriculture, is virtually grounded. It won’t happen, Freeth said.
He noted that in 2005, “Operation Maguta/Inala” was devised to utilise the army to till the land and feed the nation through a “command agriculture” system.
The operation failed dismally, resulting in 5,8 million people requiring emergency food assistance.
Now in 2016, through Mnangagwa, politicians have suddenly announced another grand command agriculture scheme costing US$500 million.
This time they wish to fund a select politically supportive set of 2 000 farmers who will each apparently grow 1 000 tonnes of maize for the State. Any excess over the 1 000 tonnes can be retained by the farmer. Each farmer will be earmarked to receive US$250 000 to produce 1 000 tonnes.
“There would of course be a great rush for that money. An opportunity such as this, which would give the so-called farmer both status and financial benefit, would have significant appeal. In a country where poverty is dire, where the vast majority of title deeds have been nationalised, and where the banks have run out of money, it’s almost impossible to get money from anywhere on that scale,” said Freeth.
“When the political elite and their friends gain that money though, they will suddenly realise that it’s actually not enough. Installing irrigation schemes costs a great deal more than the allocated US$1 250 per hectare. After that, there is also the cost of tractors, tilling equipment, planters, combine harvesters, sprayers, fertiliser, seed, diesel, electricity, chemicals, wages — and so the list goes on.”
Economist, Vince Musewe, told the Financial Gazette that apart from presenting the politically connected with a chance to share a half-a-billion dollar jackpot, this programme would not solve the country’s long-running hunger menace.
“It won’t deliver the results because they are using wrong criteria to select the beneficiaries,” said Musewe, who insisted that ideally, the programme should simply have been called “Commercial Agriculture,” instead of “Command Agriculture.”
“Yields of five tonnes per hectare will not be achieved due to lack of expertise… I just don’t know why these guys never learn and leave it to the business sector to feed the nation!” charged Musewe.
Another analyst, Pillan Zamchiya, said Zimbabwe could as well learn from a plethora of lessons from history in which such types of schemes failed dismally.
“This proposed scheme of agrarian simplification is a historical at large. Command agriculture schemes have been tried through collectivisation in Soviet Russia and Ujamaa villages in Tanzania, among other examples, but they have failed. How a government can propose a production scheme of strong historical echoes of high authoritarian modernism of the 18th Century in the 21st Century boggles the mind.
Economist, John Robertson
“Similar commandist goals envisioned by Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, Stalin et cetera failed to result in increased grain. For collectivisation, the target was to produce a third of the grain required for the country, but ended up producing only 2,2 percent,” said Zamchiya.
Freeth said: “To become a successful agricultural nation once again, Zimbabwe needs to follow the advice John Robertson gave in 1980 and recognise the title deed owners for what they are: ‘Owners’; and then create new title deeds throughout the country where title deeds have never existed before. If that is done, within a short period of time, Zimbabwe will once again be not only food secure, but a thriving nation with produce, jobs and development.”
In 1980 Robertson, as finance editor of the Financial Gazette, had provided the solution to the new authorities in the Zimbabwe administration thus: “Give all farmers title deeds —regardless of whether they are black or white, large-scale or small, communal or commercial, and we will see the economy boom sustainably.”
Said Robertson himself this week: “Market forces, coupled with security of tenure and functional banks, work very well indeed, while command structures to run countries have failed without exception.
“If Zimbabwe hopes to see a quick recovery, it should trust market forces to deliver the needed commitment from farmers and all other producers, investors, service providers and workers.”
Only time will tell if doomsayers quoted above are wrong in dismissing the government latest “solution” to perennial food shortages as another graveyard of good intent.
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