Revival in #zimbabwe

Zimbabwe Standard
The news that millions of people in Zimbabwe are
starving and in desperate need of humanitarian
aid is very sad in a country that used to be the
"breadbasket" of southern Africa and still has
much potential to achieve agricultural success.
Today, Zimbabwe can hardly feed her
population, let alone export any food crops. In a
desperate bid to save lives, the government has
resorted to begging for grain from mostly
Zambia and South Africa.
Ironically, 13 years ago, Zambia was very much
dependent on Zimbabwe for its grain supply.
It is no secret that the turn of fortunes came
about after the government embarked on the fast
track land reform programme, that saw the bulk
of white commercial farmers that had operated in
the country with tremendous success for many
years, losing "their" farms and being replaced
with new black farmers.
But almost 14 years after the "new farmers"
acquired the land, the country is still to realise any
meaningful agricultural success, resulting in some
people questioning the sense in the fast track land
reform programme.
Some are even of the view that farming should
have been left to white commercial farmers who
clearly knew what they were doing, as far as
farming was concerned.
But there are also many (especially those that are
pro-indigenisation) that believe that the unfair land
appropriation that saw white people owning
much of the fertile land while black people
struggled with the infertile soils that characterises
most communal areas from which they laboured
hard to eke out a living, just had to be corrected.
Now that the black farmers hold the reins as they
have been given the previously white-owned
land, pertinent questions arise.
Almost 14 years later, why have we not yet
regained our agricultural prowess of days past?
Why are millions of people starving today? Why
are some of the farmers abandoning farming in
pursuit of less productive and rather destructive
ventures, like clearing their areas of trees that they
are selling as firewood along the highways?
Sustainable farming is the way to go
The majority of farmers that have had some
measure of success are mostly into tobacco
farming, as the crop is considered to be better
rewarding monetary-wise and because the crop
can thrive under harsh conditions, unlike say,
maize.
But even as tobacco farming has been hailed as a
success, it is at the expense of the country's
forests. Zimbabwe today faces deforestation
partly because tobacco farmers have been cutting
down mostly indigenous trees to use in curing
their crop. Furthermore, tobacco farming has
accelerated at the expense of food crops!
When asked why they have not been able to fully
utilise the land they were given, most of those
"farmers" whose lands remain mostly idle have
blamed it on a lack of inputs. But this is in spite of
the fact that farmers have received government
support in the form of inputs since they attained
the land.
However, further probing reveals there is more
to the lack of success on most farms than the
problem of "lack of inputs".
Success in farming has a great deal to do with
one's farming practices. Maybe owing to the fact
that most farmers did not actually study farming
as a subject, there is clearly very little know-how
of sustainable farming practices by most farmers.
Sustainable agriculture can essentially be
described as the practice of farming ecologically,
rather than focussing only on the economic
viability of the crops. Employing sustainable
farming practices ensures that the land will be
suitable for productive farming even in the future.
Ancient and ineffective farming practices such as
slash-and-burn, a highly destructive way of
clearing the land which has been proven to do
nothing but tire the soils and render them less
productive over a period of time while
exacerbating the looming global warming threat,
are common with most farmers.
Unknown to them, reducing tillage and leaving as
much crop residue as possible in the field each
season is good residue management and part of
an effective conservation plan that assures better
soil fertility, among other benefits.
Since they acquired the land, some so-called new
farmers have only ever planted one type of crop.
Crop rotation and crop diversity are clearly
foreign concepts to them.
There also seems to be an overdependence on
fertilisers, so much that many farmers believe
farming would be impossible without the use of
large amounts of fertilizer. But that can be a
problem. Excessive nitrogen fertilizer application
for instance, often leads to pest problems and
risks contaminating ground water.
The idea of taking up organic farming does not
seem to be one the local farmers are welcoming.
The erratic rainfall patterns have not helped
matters.