Zimbabwe: A2 Farmers Have Suckled Too Long On State's Breast

Source from:  Financial Gazette (Harare) 03/20/2007

MOVES announced by the government recently to phase out the provision of free farming inputs to A2 farmers were long overdue. Plans to wean the new farmers from their dependency on state farming inputs and subsidised fuel were announced by Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor, Gideon Gono, during a tour of farms in Mashonaland. During the tour, the RBZ boss told the press: "It is now seven years since we reclaimed our land but we continue looking at the government for support. Next season we will wean off all A2 farmers as they are now grown up." Most people will agree with him that seven years is enough time for the farmers to have acquired the knowledge and skills necessary to make a success of their activities on the land. It is common knowledge in African culture that breastfed infants should be weaned while they are still young enough not to remember the taste of mother's milk. A seven-year-old returning from school or from the playground to latch on to his or her mother's breast would be a very unusual sight. I once saw an overgrown 'baby' of six years still suckling because her mother was observing a family taboo against weaning a child in the father's absence. This was during the time when Zimbabwean men went on long sojourns to work in South Africa's gold mines. Both mother and child looked miserable. The mother was exhausted and the child was the butt of jokes from her playmates who by the same stage already had two or three younger siblings. Legend has it however, that when she grew up the child eventually forgot the taste of her mother's milk. The situation described above is analogous to new farmers wanting to continue to latch on to the fiscal breast when they should make way for more pressing national needs. Farming is an occupation that gives quick results. Crops can be planted and reaped in the very first season. But this seems to have proved an impossible task for farmers allocated land since 2000 judging by the perennial shortfalls in agricultural production. In March last year, the RBZ governor cited some of the problems that had resulted in the ruination of the agricultural sector in a speech in which he railed against corruption and farm invasions that were still taking place despite the declaration by the government that the land redistribution exercise had been completed. He said then: "If as a country we do not resolutely stamp out growing corruption, especially among us people in positions of authority and influence, us the so-called chefs, if we do not stamp out the indiscipline in our midst, we will soon discover too late that policy formulations . . . have been (based) on self-interest at the expense of the national good." In May the same year, he slammed new tobacco farmers for demanding to be perpetually mollycoddled through the provision of 'infinite subsidies'. He said low-yielding farmers tended to shout the loudest and it was time to tell them some hard truths. Now, as the government prepares to undertake another land audit, these observations are still applicable. In the euphoric but chaotic atmosphere under which farms were invaded beginning in 2000, many people who did not have the foggiest idea how much hard work was involved became instant farmers. Some, as has been revealed in speeches by various government officials, acquire land either as a status symbol or because all they were interested in were the homesteads. Others have been described as cell-phone farmers who expect to direct operations on the pieces of land allocated to them from the comfort of their air-conditioned offices in Central Harare and other urban centres. If land seized from white commercial farmers is to be used to full capacity, these issues need to be addressed honestly and openly. A number of land audits have been conducted in the past without the findings helping in anyway to improve things. If anything, conflicting statements given by government officials on whether the land redistribution exercise was over or not have served to compound the situation. Fresh farm invasions have broken out from time to time and announcements have been made about new beneficiaries receiving offer letters. While it is desirable for new farmers to be made to stand on their own two feet, some nagging questions remain. One is if the new farmers have performed so dismally over the last seven years when they were being propped up by the state, will the situation improve when they have to fend for themselves? The persistence of the problems referred to above suggests that too many people who are not farmers either by inclination or aptitude were randomly allocated land. When it came to the crunch they simply could not deliver despite getting free seed, subsidised fuel and assistance with tillage. It seems as though it will take more than weaning them off their dependence syndrome to restore agricultural productivity. Enditem