The land is the economy and the economy is the land

When protection of the leader becomes an obsession economic progress is stagnated

Funny Mushava whose father was a respected Mbare Musika grocer, medical assistant at the Dr Wolfson surgery in Cameroon Street and Beatrice commercial farmer who bought his farm in the early eighties is the preferred authority on the Zanu PF land empowerment or is it disempowerment mantra.

His instalment titled “Cabinet, give an ear to farmers” with the favourite Zanu PF campaign theme in an apparent slur of the Finance Minister from the MDC for his failure to do what Dr Gono had done over the past five years for the benefit of the Zanu PF unproductive free commercial farm beneficiaries.

The cynicism in the article was there from the outset.

“I hate winter because the nights are long and there is not much one can do when it is cold other than snuggle up and light up a fire. At the moment this may not be possible because where I live, electricity is like Christmas. It only comes once a year. To make it worse, there is no firewood and when I get it, it is damn expensive. So that is why I love summer and the sunshine. That is me — a layman,” proclaimed Mushava in his mouth-watering opening remarks.

Since when has it dawned on Zanu PF propagandists that the government must be chided for failing to deliver heating energy to their homes? Our experience has been basic services outages for a decade while Mushava and company were busy agitating for government’s chaotic invasion of commercial farmlands and forests where woodlands were reduced to deserts by the new firewood farmers.

No wonder firewood is now scarce and expensive. The forests were razed down by the firewood farmers that Funny Mushava (no pun intended) and the State Media crew played a crucial role in supporting and urging on.

Now that the fruits of the ill conceived invasions have caught up with Mushava if at all, he wants to blame it on the coalition government because the bankrupted Energy Ministry has been assigned an MDC Minister who must be exposed in bad light to the electorate.

But back to the substance of Mushava’s timely intervention at a time when there is heated debate on the continued incumbency of Dr Gono and Johannes Tomana at the RBZ and AG’s office.

“I am amazed at the casual attitude of the Government. I say casual because I have yet to see a commitment, other than the usual talking, to a proper plan for the 2009/2010 agricultural season. Already we are told that there is a serious bread shortage looming due to the fact that not many farmers have gone for wheat this winter.

Government had set a target of 100 000 tonnes of wheat this winter. We would be lucky if we get a tenth of this due to a number of reasons,” he went straight to the point and added.

“Farming costs money. Right now not many people have spare money to engage in extensive farming.

I have watched year in and year out, the country’s grain silos being emptied to a level where they are now just shells. This is a country which in the 1980s had plenty of maize, enough to feed itself and the region. That is why at the formation of Sadc, Zimbabwe was given the portfolio of feeding the region.

Due to a number of reasons already documented by political analysts, activists and detractors and so on, Zimbabwe has turned from the breadbasket of the region to a basket case of the region.”

Nothing odd about the line of thinking and its purport except that if the government winter wheat production target has been set at 100 000 tonnes as disclosed by Mushava, it must have a basis upon which it was agreed to be an attainable objective which is being held back by either Mushava or the State for unknown reasons.

Secondly, why has Mushava been watching with folded hands over the years when agricultural output dwindled to nothing only to come out of his shell at this juncture when the situation is beyond redemption?

Could it be possible that it has only dawned upon Mushava that farming costs money now that uasi-fiscal donations from Dr Gono have dried up?

“Zimbabwe’s economy has always relied on agriculture, notably on tobacco, cotton and maize. It has been said that if the agricultural sector sneezes, the country’s economy will catch a cold. That is how important agriculture is to Zimbabwe,” Mushava reminded us and we must agree.

“Unfortunately, agriculture is not being taken seriously, hence the constant food shortages. It is time the Minister of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development, Dr Joseph Made, came to the party. He has been in this portfolio long enough to know what needs to be done.

He is the one holding the reins and the best we can do is give him advice and our support for no one wants to go back to the days of eating wild fruits,” he pleaded.

Mushava usefully pointed out that in addition to the docile Minister of Agriculture, Ministers of Finance, Mr Tendai Biti; Lands and Rural Resettlement, Dr Herbert Murerwa; Water Resources and Development, Mr Samuel Sipepa Nkomo; Environment and Natural Resources Management, Mr Francis Nhema; Energy and Power Development, Engineer Elias Mudzuri; Science and Technology Professor Heneri Dzinotyiweyi and Labour and Social Welfare, Ms Paurina Mpariwa must wise up to the agricultural deficit challenge that is looming.

It is the how part of his suggestion that raises eyebrows.

“I beg to differ with economists who say market forces should determine the producer price of maize and wheat at the moment. My advice is that the Government, through the Ministry of Finance and Agriculture, should offer a producer price that is above that of the market. It should entice people to sell their produce so that it can store the grains.

Yes, it will make a loss in the short term, but this move will become a double-edged sword in the long run. It will fill up our silos thereby ensuring food security and ultimately the Government will not import in times of drought, as there will be enough in reserve,” he pontificated.

Alluding to the prosperous 1980’s when the country was the breadbasket of SADC as opposed to the basket case it now has become in the region Mushava attributed the agricultural successes to the sterling efforts of then Agriculture Minister Moven Mahachi, who listened to farmers’ problems and presented them well in Cabinet.

By deduction it must then mean the failure in the past decade must be attributed to current Minister Dr Joseph made who does not care what the farmers think but is obsessed with urging land invaders to loot and pillage commercial farms and then reward them with farm inputs and implements which are never put to good use other than sold for a song to the few serious farmers still remaining in the country who after a season’s success are haunted out of the harvest.

But it is the suggestion on how government should go about fixing pre-season producer prices that raises eyebrows.

Mushava suggests that market forces must be ignored in fixing pre-planting producer prices. Mushava implores the Minister of Finance to release funds that enable the Agriculture Minister to pay farmers above market producer prices to stimulate agricultural productivity and fill up the silos that were emptied in the past decade even if it leaves the fiscus saddled with a debilitating debt.

He argues that the filled silos will guarantee the debt in the long term at the same time the abundance of cereal reserves will enable the Finance Ministry to regulate production levels by reducing and or holding producer prices where adequacy has been reached.

Such a pricing model he argues would in the long run allow farming organisations to divest into cash cropping when cereal production is considered less profitable in a particular season and the void they leave would be filled by communal farmers who mainly grow for personal consumption and dispose of excesses at whatever price they can fetch for other necessities of life.

The argument is for a pricing policy that influences planting decisions of the producers rather than the one that takes cognisance of available supplies and competitive to attract adequate stocks.

He points out that for the current crop the GMB is offering US$265 per tonne payable at some indeterminate future date if at all I must add. Because of that uncertainty on when the producer would be paid some entrepreneurs have moved in to mop up the produce ahead of the GMB at US$180/tonne which the farmers are gladly accepting.

Mushava still argues that the US$265/tonne offered by the GMB is not adequate to offset producer debts incurred by farmers when they sourced growing funds from the expensive black market and in any event the false sense of food security offered by imported cereals is short-lived and expensive when consideration is given to the dire need of forex in the country.

That is why he believes a loss making pre-planting producer price would attract adequate stock levels that will guarantee long term food sufficiency at a cheaper price if the government agrees to subsidise producers now rather than import later.

It appears the time value of money concept is lost to Mushava and his faith in subsidised farming models is misplaced.

Most farmers produced using cheaply sourced and or freely obtained inputs from RBZ quasi-fiscal indulgences in the previous season and nothing short of unstrained producers’ greed would justify the claim to higher prices on the basis of having sourced inputs from the black market.

The only reason GMB is offering the US$265/tonne is because it does not have cash to pay producers on the spot otherwise it could be attracting deliveries at the US$180/tonne offered by its competitors.

The US$ 85 premium offered by the GMB is to cover for delays in payment and transportation costs which are not attendant in competitor offers to producers and the farmers are taking up the lesser because for them a bird in hand is worth a dozen in the forest.

The suggestion for the Government to subsidise the farmers and consumers is an attempt to draw out the Finance Minister and commit the treasury into a debt crisis it is ill equipped to sustain and manage so that at election time Zanu PF will blame the MDC for the subsidy policy that did not work.

Alternatively the idea is to try and perpetuate the feeling that the MDC is not favourable to economic empowerment through land ownership as evidenced by its failure to subsidise farmers.

Either way the suggestion is a political initiative as opposed to a genuine economic concern from Zanu PF.

The surest way for government to restore agricultural productivity is not through monetary incentivisation but rather through restoration of order on commercial farms, issuance of land title deeds to farmers which they can use as collateral to borrow production inputs financing and carry the risk of losing the land should they fail to service loans through abuse of borrowed funds as happened with RBZ quasi fiscal donations.

Farming is a productive venture which must impose risks on the entrepreneur’s shoulders and not the State.

True failed agricultural productivity impacts negatively on the government of the day from a hungry electorate but that is the case with any economic activity in the country that fails.

The government must provide an enabling environment for farmers to carry out their business with the least of interference from political impunity ahead of any thought of subsidies.

By issuing title to farmers the government will have satisfied no less than 60% of its obligation to farmers and the balance 40% will include consistent energy supplies, availability of farming inputs in retail outlets, attractive producer prices linked to supply and demand.

Government must depend on its committed farmers for popularity and survival and not the other way round.