Maravi

(TALKZIMBABWE) Food security under threat

Food security under threat
Fri, 22 Jan 2010 13:20:00 +0000

THE country faces grim prospects of a good harvest in the coming season. This is against the backdrop of arguably the poorest wheat harvest since the introduction of the crop in the country.

In the midst of all this, the inclusive Government seems to be focused at mundane personnel issues as hunger stalks. Which begs the question: Have we become a nation of beggars?

Ironically, the country joined the rest of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to focus on alleviating hunger on the 16th of November 2009. This is despite the fact that some elements in the inclusive Government are making concerted efforts to destroy agriculture, especially the growth of cereals due to their blind pursuit of policies that will only result in the reversal of land reform gains and dissuade farmers from engaging in growing of food crops.

Should it not be a source of worry to the inclusive Government that experts are predicting a fall in crop yield this coming season, mainly due to the lack of
assistance to the new farmer?

FAO Operations Officers Michael Jenrich says that the country is likely to harvest 450 000 tonnes, during next year’s harvest. The figure represents a 65% decrease from last year’s harvest of 1, 5 million tones against a yearly requirement of 1,8 million tonnes.

One of the basic constitutional rights of an individual is the right to adequate food. Thus the onus is on the state to ensure food security.

While the inclusive Government has said ad infinitum that is priorities agriculture, it has made it clear that state funding of the sector is now a thing of the past. It
raises the question, how committed is the government in guaranteeing food security through production?

In pursuit of new liberal capitalist free market policies, the elements have cajoled the government into commercializing food production. But behind the façade,
therein lies regime change agenda machinations.

Experts have lamented the government approach to food security. “We have a false sense of food security in Zimbabwe. The extension of the statutory instrument extending the suspension of duty on food imports is an acknowledgement that we cannot feed ourselves”. There is no honour in failing to feed ourselves, said Joseph Kanyekanye, the vice President of Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries.

There is a deliberate attempt by a part of the inclusive Government to see to it that the A2 farmers produce very poor yields and then trumpet about the failure of
the land reform programme.

A lot has been said about the US$210 million facility to be accessed through commercial banks. The funds are likely to remain with the banks as the facility has come too late for the farmers to go through the required formalities. In any case the majority of the emerging farmers do not have the required collateral.

Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers’ Union, Director Paul Zakariya told the Voice of America radio channel that farmers do not have “title deeds or even enough cattle to use as collateral”.

Even the suggestion by Minister Made that the farmer exchange their grain with seed is laughable. Does a farmer spend a whole season toiling in order to barter just enough seed for the next season? Which brings the question, is farming a business or a lobby according to government?

It is a pity that this neo-liberal gospel of free market has been taken too far. It is a fact that there is no agro-based economy that has been based on the back of a
passive state. We have a so called 'Best Finance Minister in Africa' whose people are on the verge of starvation due to poor priorities.

The much valuated white commercial agriculture in the then Rhodesia and Zimbabwe grew as a result of heavy state subsidies.

Nowhere in history has a state commercialized food security without severe repercussions to its food security. Even the proponents of a free market maintain heavy subsidies on food crops.

A research carried out by Chris Edwards, a renowned scholar, indicated that the United States of America’s Department of Agriculture spends between US$30
billion and US$35 billion annually in cash subsidies to farmers every year. More than 90% of the agriculture subsidies go to tones of wheat, maize, soya beans, rice and cotton.

In Europe, French farmers were up in arms with the government calling for an increase in state subsidies. The government had to back down and ended up giving the farmers 1.7 billion Euros in subsidies and loans. It then comes as a source of amusement how a country that in the process of reshaping the structure of its agriculture sector decides to wean off its farmers in their infancy.

A research commissioned by Action Aid, a Non-Governmental Organisation that focuses on food security revealed that the countries that have managed to attain self sufficiency in terms of food “have all retaining or reclaiming a central role for the state in food and agriculture”.

Countries such as Brazil, Ghana, China and Malawi have been able to reduce longer and attain self sufficiency through “Sweeping land reforms and state support to small holder farmers”. In contrast, those that liberalized like India have joined the ranks of the hungry since the mid-nineties. Are we not running the risk of falling into the same trap?

The treatment of food just as another commodity will only perpetuate hunger. It boggles the mind why a country such as ours, without a single grain in its strategic grain reserve relegates food production and leaves it at the mercy of market forces.

Even if the farmers were to access the loans from banks, it makes business sense for the farmer that is if he ever gets cash, to use the money for buying and selling because one cannot break even in the face of competition from subsidized grain from other countries. After all, the loans being provided by the banks do not cover tillage and labour costs.

Despite pronouncements to the contrary, it seems there is a sexual fascination with souring aid (tine madonor anokuunzirai chikafu - we have donors who will give you food) rather than capacity building.

This raises more questions than answers about the inclusive Government.

Is the nation prepared to see the new farmers fail and depend on donor aid? If so, why and in order to achieve what? Can one not see a hidden hand in the whole
process?

Can anyone explain how the Prime Minister failed to source a dollar for the A2 farmers when he was able to get US$200 million for the civic society in two weeks?

The not so hidden machinations revealed themselves through the weekly Prime Minister newsletter. All of a sudden the Prime Minister through his propaganda machinery laid claim to the US$70 million input scheme aimed at communal farmers’ assistance.

What is not clear is whether the money being referred to is the same as the one widely reported in other media before and was credited to wider government
efforts rather than an individual.

It smacks of cheap politicking by the Prime Minister and his apparatiks in a bid to pacify the rural electorate whilst at the same time showing the middle finger to
the resettled farmers.

Whilst claiming virtual bankruptcy, the Minister of Finance has somehow availed US$43 million dollars for the constitution-making exercise, at the same time
failing to provide at least a million dollars for cloud seeding. Why focus on power as if people eat constitutions? A hungry belly knows no law.

In the midst of all this, the European Union (EU) has come up with an offer that further raised eyebrows. The EU’s chief in Zimbabwe Xavier Marchal has indicated that they are in a position to sponsor a national land audit to the tune of US$30 million at a time they have snubbed providing funding to the very farmers
they want to be audited.

The US$30 million can go a long way in assisting the new farmers rather than trying to prove the widely acclaimed claims of lack of productivity on the farms.

The country is sitting on a powder keg. There are hidden but very spirited efforts to reverse the land reform program.

What is unfortunate is that some patriots within the inclusive Government have been hoodwinked to sanitizing a grandiose attempt to destroy agricultural reform and commit the country into perpetual beggars.

If it persists, the 4th Chimurenga is not very far away. Be warned.

Labels: FOOD

posted by MrK @ 7:23 PM