Zimbabwe?s new prime minister and the head of theMovement for Democratic Change (MDC), Morgan Tsvangirai, calls the situation inhis country ?one of the worst man-made humanitarian disasters,? and says more than fivemillion of his compatriots are endangered by ?starvation and famine? ? largelybecause of ruling party policies that have eroded his country?s once-thrivingagricultural base.
?Large-scale commercial farm output?is a completedisaster,? says Deon Theron, vice president of Zimbabwe?s Commercial FarmersUnion.
Production of staple food crops, such as maize (corn), isdown, and in recent years Zimbabwe has consistently failed to meet its exportquotas of beef, for example, to the European Union. So valuable foreigncurrency has been lost, deepening the suffering of the country?s people.
It?sin this context that a new-look government made up of former enemies will beexpected to unite to resurrect Zimbabwean agriculture.
It?sa ?frightening responsibility,? says Geoff Hill, the Zimbabwean author ofseveral books about his homeland, which include analysis about its agriculturaldecay.
TheUnited Nations rates southern Africa one of the world?s fastest urbanizingregions.
?There?stherefore a real need to grow crops on a big scale to feed people in thecities,? says Hill.
TheUN estimates that up to 70 per cent of Zimbabweans live in towns and cities,far away from farmlands.
Ina scenario such as this, argues Hill, and with a small economy, very largecommercial agriculture is the only successful response to hunger in Zimbabwe.
?Tomatoesare cheap only if grown by the ton. Ditto most other foods,? he states.
Hillpoints out that it usually takes only a season to turn seeds into crops, andcrops into food.
?Sothe problem isn?t in planting food. Zimbabwe?s huge problem at the moment isthat there really isn?t the infrastructure and the expertise necessary forcommercial farming. We need train lines alongwhich you can cart the fertilizer, the roads to take crops to market, thetractor parts getting to remote areas to maintain equipment, the dealershipswhere farmers can buy essential products. All of this has broken down in theturmoil of the past decade or so.?
Hill says Zimbabwe?s entireagricultural sector ?basically needs to be rebuilt from the ground up, andthat?s going to take time and money.?
Acuteshortages of fertilizer and seed and bad weather have also hurt Zimbabweanagriculture in recent years, according to Ben Gilpin, of the country?s JusticeFor Agriculture group. He says Zimbabwe is set to face the most serious cerealshortages since 2000.
PresidentMugabe has consistently maintained that his land reform program, under whichfarms owned mostly by the descendants of British settlers were sometimesbrutally seized by ZANU-PF militants, the police and army, has worked. It?sbeen successful, he says, because it?s given land to impoverished black people.
Hillresponds, ?It wasn?t a land reform program, it was a land redistributionprogram. What happened was the land was simply given to Mugabecronies, like war veterans and army generals, who didn?t know anything aboutfarming. They use the land to entertain themselves and their friends.?
Hillagrees that ?responsible? land reform is necessary in Zimbabwe to address theinequalities of the past, and adds that the ?hopelessly irresponsible? landseizures are largely responsible for the country?s meltdown.
?Agricultureis not just about using land for food,? he explains. ?Zimbabwe used to be theworld?s number one tobacco producer, and a top producer of cotton. It wasnear the top in producing high-end foods and flowers, coffee and tea, for theworld market ? thingsthat you can sell overseas in order to get foreign currency, with which you canbuy petrol and car tires and all the things that Zimbabwe simply cannotmanufacture locally.?
The power-sharing agreement commitsthe signatories to land reform in Zimbabwe, saying they?ll ?ensure that all Zimbabweanswho are eligible [shall] be allocated land and who apply for it shall beconsidered for allocation of land irrespective of race, gender, religion,ethnicity or political affiliation.?
ButGeoff Hill counsels against a ?mass allocation? of land to Zimbabweans.
?Agricultureshould be looked at as a means of feeding the people, not as a means wherebypeople are settled on land. People need education to get better work, notparcels of land.?
Besides, he says, as the UNstatistics show, Zimbabweans are continuing to move away from the rural areasand into urban areas.