Farmers Regret Growing Tobacco

Source from:  By Bertha Shoko Local 14 June 2008 06/16/2008

FOR the past two weeks Gloria and Samuel Mwedziwendira's home has been an open area outside the Tobacco Sales Floor along Willowvale Road in the industrial suburb of Southerton. They say they are first-time tobacco growers, having occupied a farm in the Bindura area in 2004. They arrived at the tobacco auction floors from Bindura on 3 June and spent another four days waiting for their tobacco to be sold. Now, the couple says they have been waiting ever since their tobacco went under the hammer to get their pay cheques and return home. Gloria (39), says she had no idea that selling their tobacco would take that long, and was anxious about the safety of her four children back home. "I don't think I will be growing tobacco again," says Gloria dejectedly, wincing from the pain of the smoke stinging her eyes. "I had no idea it would be such a hassle. I am worried about my children back home. They are all alone. The oldest is just in Form 3. Can you believe that we came here with just two pairs of clothes?" As first-time tobacco growers, the couples say they had come unprepared for a long stay in Harare and admit their stay has been a nightmare. At as early as 5am Gloria wakes up to boil water for her husband and make breakfast for him in aluminium tins she picked up in a bin in the industrial area. For his bath, Samuel, 46, says he is content with just two or three handfuls of water on his face, under the circumstances. His breakfast is roast sweet potatoes cooked overnight using the fire with which they warmed themselves during the night to save firewood, which is expensive. "Yesterday (Tuesday) the names for the cheques that were ready were read out. My name was not there," Samuel said. "Nobody has told us what is going on. They are very rude. They snap at us and tell us 'go back home, you money is coming'. Some are lucky. They got part payments." As soon as Samuel and many other men leave for the auction floor to wait for their payments and sell their tobacco, Gloria says she and other women take turns to stay on guard and take a quick bath behind the tobacco floors. "If you are on guard you have to make sure when you see a man approaching you whistle so that the other women bathing cover themselves up," Gloria says, with a shy smile. "At first I was ashamed to take a bath in the open but now I am used to it because I realise there is no other way." After bathing, Gloria takes a "stroll" into the high-density suburbs nearby to look for firewood. By the time she returns, it's time to prepare lunch for her husband, and hours later, supper. This is the routine Gloria's life has fallen into since her arrival at the tobacco floors. The Mwedziwendiras are among the hundreds of rural tobacco farmers living under the most appalling conditions along Willowvale Road as they wait to sell their tobacco and receive payment. Last week, The Standard visited the area and was shocked at the extent to which these poor rural farmers struggle to sell their produce that ironically is one of the country's highest foreign currency earners. Behind the Tobacco Sales Floor along Eltham Road where most of the farmers have set up temporary shelter, there are no lavatories and farmers and their families resort to the bush after hours. With no water supply in the area, there are fears that a disease outbreak is imminent, especially in the absence of the proper toilet facilities. To add to the growing population at the Tobacco Sales Floor during the day are the many cross-border traders and informal food vendors who have set up mini-markets there to take advantage of the huge captive market. In the winter cold children, many of them still breastfeeding, sleep in the open. Women The Standard talked to said sometimes when it is very cold they sneak into the tobacco floors to sleep, exposing their children and themselves to tobacco-related diseases. "What choice do we have really?" said Miriam Kamba from Karoi when asked if she knew the dangers of raw tobacco inhalation. "If I sleep in the open, the child could develop a cold. The best thing is for me and my husband to go back home, but what will we survive on if we leave our cheques here?" Contacted for comment on the possible disease outbreak at the tobacco floors, the Minister of Health and Child Welfare, Dr David Parirenyatwa said: "It is a very depressing situation which we have urged the relevant authorities to look into as a matter of urgency." Parirenyatwa said his ministry had communicated with the City Council's Health Department over the issue which was brought to their attention by many concerned parties. He said: "We are aware of the possible outbreak of communicable diseases such as diarrhoea and cholera and we are working with the City Health Department to provide temporary sanitary facilities at most of the tobacco floors, not just the ones along Willowvale Road. Political analyst John Makumbe believes that the delay by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) to pay farmers is a sign of the failure of the land reform programme in Zimbabwe. "How can we entrust such people to take care of bringing food to the nation's table?" Makumbe said. "This is the problem of taking care over farms and systems that you cannot run. Before the land grab exercise we never saw farmers spending days queuing at the Tobacco floors and sleeping in the open with their wives and children. This is most degrading." Enditem