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Obert Chifamba Agri-Insight

TOMORROW, Zimbabweans will once again evoke memories of the extraordinary 18th day of April in 1980 when the country got its independence.

It will be a day punctuated by revelries of various measures, as the country pays homage and celebrates the emancipation from the shackles of colonialism.

Enough respect to those men and women who paid the ultimate price of losing their lives for the just cause of freeing the country from bondage and paving the way for native Zimbabweans to access spaces formerly designated as ‘no-go-areas.’

The advent of independence opened up a host of avenues of empowerment for the new Zimbabwe to start carving and write its own piece of history. The country’s political independence brought with it economic freedom that allowed citizens of the newly born republic to assume ownership of the means of production in most spheres of life.

Today, I will once again be knocking on farmers’ doors and reminding them on the need to effectively utilise those pieces of land they were allocated under the land redistribution programme and now proudly call ‘theirs.

Farmers must remember that land was one of the major reasons people went to wage the liberation war and so the only way of demonstrating their gratitude to those who died for it is by producing competitively while protecting the land from man-made challenges that may end up rendering it unusable.

Today millions of formerly landless Zimbabweans are producing a variety of crops and eking  livelihoods out of the land.

This has empowered them to create employment for not only those people they engage on their farms but everyone who participates at any point along the value chain.

This is quite a feat considering that the majority of the people used to think that the only employer was the owner of some business or big company where people would queue to get either white collar or manual jobs.

Suffice it to say therefore that one of the ways through which Zimbabweans can demonstrate their gratitude towards the thousands that took part in the gruelling war to free the country is by preserving the legacy of these patriotic cadres by actively participating in land reform initiatives and using sustainable farming practices.

The use of sustainable farming practices will ensure that the land becomes finitely productive and can be handed down to generation after generation. This means farmers must use methods that are friendly to the environment and allow it to regenerate even after use.

Farmers and the nation at large must remember to continuously promote peace, unity and reconciliation among those who were involved in the land reform process.

Peace is a sure tonic for development and ranks highly among the key tools that give meaning to political independence.

It also creates the much-needed conducive environment for effective production in any sector of the economy, agriculture included.

There is need for a peaceful environment in the farming communities. Happy people always work productively, which is what the agriculture sector needs.

There is this tendency by some farmers to always expect Government to do everything for them at the expense of production.

This group of farmers must appreciate that Government is doing a lot to free the farming sphere – all the interventions, the support schemes and above all, the free inputs.

It is always good for farmers to show their appreciation of this support by playing their part and adding more value to what Government would have initiated.

Currently, there is a lot happening ranging from dam construction, irrigation development, livestock breeding initiatives, community gardens to drilling of boreholes, just to name a few as Government moves to create an enabling environment for competitive production.

Where vital infrastructure is being developed, the next thing is proper maintenance, which should not be the Government’s duty but that of farmers.

There were some good agricultural practices from long back which still have a lot of relevance, for instance, construction of contour ridges in the fields, using ploughing methods that do not encourage soil degradation and use of paddocks for pasture management.

These practices should be adopted and upgraded for the best results.

I have since noticed that some communities no longer maintain contour ridges yet they are important in the event of excessive rains that can easily ruin fields.

Those communal plunge dip tanks that Government constructed and is still constructing need to be maintained by the people using them to save their cattle from ticks.

As the country celebrates independence, it is important for citizens to remember that commemorations of any event can only happen successfully when the people are food secure, hence the need to always cherish the freedom people now have towards using the land.

It is also crucial to realise that in the colonial era, support programmes were tailor-made to cater for a few white farmers who would get loans at concessionary rates or terms. This would easily create the impression that the benefiting farmers were good at their trade while their African counterparts were reduced to subsistence levels in which they would only be striving to produce enough to meet their domestic requirements.

Independence freed that space from these monopolistic tendencies and made it possible for every farmer to approach lending banks and secure loans to fund production.

The exciting thing is that despite the production bottlenecks, indigenous Zimbabwean farmers still managed to account for the bigger chunk of the country’s food requirements with the few white farmers mostly focusing on crops for the export markets.

Of course they would argue that they were the ones better placed to export produce but that argument did not hold much water, as the natives had never been given the chance to demonstrate their capabilities or vice-versa.

Today they form the bulk of the country’s exporters of crop produce and are even meeting those elitist standards that used to be a preserve of a few. It is time more farmers ride on Government’s push to commercialise agricultural production and run their farming activities as businesses.

The advent of political independence paved the way for a more people-friendly Government.  This makes it possible for farmers to engage policymakers and Government directly. This enhanced access to political processes that is happening today is making it possible for farmers to add their voice in the formulation of policies related to agriculture. This is a plus for agricultural efficiency.