Moving forward in Zimbabwe - Brooks World Poverty Institute - The ...

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Moving forward in Zimbabwe Reducing poverty and promoting growth system was followed, where secured finance was based on the provision of security for the loans (which was mostly land title). However, in the early 1990s the AFC was ‘commercialised’ and its lending to smallholders declined, despite the introduction of a group lending scheme aimed at smallholders (Chisvo, 2000). In the late 1990s talk of privatisation led to the AFC being divided into a commercial company (Agribank) and a soft-loan company (ADAF) which aimed to increase lending to poor households primarily in communal areas. The functions of ADAF have now been taken over by parts of the central bank (see below) and it is not clear where it goes from this point. Since most commercial farmers lost their land, the Agribank together with other financial institutions have been left facing huge losses, made worst by the fact that no meaningful new business has replaced the commercial farmers’ business. The Agribank continues to be used by government to channel funds to agriculture but its role is no longer as prominent as it was in the 1980s. Other financial institutions and commercial banks continued to provide financing to farmers during the crisis but only to a select group of farmers. Most of this financing was preferential financing from the central bank and commercial banks were just used as conduits to pass the financing to farmers. Since 1998-99 the GMB has been advancing credit to some smallholder producers in an attempt to stimulate maize production (Tschirley, Jayne et al. 1999). Some smallholder producers also gain access to credit in kind for agricultural production through contract farming and outgrower schemes, but data for these is scarce. Meanwhile, during the 1990s there was a sharp rise in the number of savings clubs in rural areas. The recent expansion of these clubs has been encouraged by independent organisations such as the Zimbabwe Self-Help Development Foundation, churches and even by agricultural input firms such as Windmill and Agricura in the 1990s. Unfortunately with the hyperinflationary environment of the late 2000s this had ground to a halt once major clients who constituted effective demand in the commercial farm sector had ceased operations. Agricultural inputs Government input policy has changed much over the past decade. Most of the changes have been dictated by the fortunes of the nation given the many fluctuations in agricultural performance over that time. Government generally controls inputs, production and trade through multiple mechanisms, but marketing remains in private channels. For example, the government through the Ministry of Agriculture: • allocated foreign exchange through trade associations for agricultural machinery, pesticides and seeds. These arrangements for the allocation of foreign exchange gave trade associations authority to organise and protect oligopoly markets that did not foster efficiency. Imported machinery in the 1980s and 1990s was only suited for larger-scale farmers (Gisselquist and Rusike, 1997). • subsidised inputs through under-priced foreign exchange. This helped maintain fixed parastatal fertiliser prices. This resulted in farmers having a limited choice of fertilisers, although this situation was better than the situation in most neighbouring countries. The seed distribution systems though has been found to have been ‘the crown jewel of seed systems in Africa’ (Eicher, 1995: 47) particularly the role of Seed Co-op Company of Zimbabwe, which has been compared to international seed firms such as Pannar and Pioneer. During the 1980s there was a rapid spread of hybrid maize varieties, with most of the maize area planted to hybrids by the early 1990s. Various factors contributed to the adoption of these varieties – including promotion by Agritex, the availability of credit from AFC and the assured market provided by GMB. However a key success factor was the effectiveness of the seed distribution system. The Seed Co-op Company was very active in promoting hybrid seeds to smallholders and introduced small packs targeted at poor customers. Adoption of hybrid maize and the expansion of smallholder cotton production (amongst other things) were associated with increases in fertiliser use by smallholders. Figures quoted by Jayne et al. (1997) show that total fertiliser consumption by the smallholder sector rose from 27,100 tons p.a. in 1975-79 to 97,200 tons p.a. in 1980-84 and 119,000 tons p.a. in 1985-89. However during the crisis period as the government struggled to provide enough foreign exchange for the sector, fertiliser usage dropped to under 100,000 tonnes. 6 Livestock Zimbabwe’s total national cattle herd rose from 4.81 million in 1997 to a peak of 6.43 million in 2001. Livestock are a form of wealth and serve a multiplicity of functions which include provision of meat, milk, draught power, the use of livestock as a secure form of savings, as well as the use of livestock as a currency in a variety of cultural and social transactions such as bride price. Since Independence, there have been initiatives to support restocking of the communal livestock herd, following, first, the effects of the liberation war and, subsequently, the four main droughts. These have been run by then state owned Cold Storage, which has lent or sold cattle cheaply to communal producers, and by NGOs. State efforts have focused more on the eastern Lowveld. During the 1980s the state also sought to expand and improve the quality of veterinary services available to smallholder livestock owners. In the early 1980s, cattle dipping and vaccination were compulsory, but free or heavily subsidised. However, due to the high cost, compulsory subsidised services were gradually withdrawn later, starting in Mashonaland West in 1985. The theory was that private veterinary services would replace state dipping and vaccination. In the absence of compulsion, however, uptake rates are variable. The ending of subsidised, compulsory cattle dipping and vaccination services led to lower livestock survival rates and less investment in cattle beyond the basic number (four) necessary to ensure availability of draught power. Animal diseases have also become widespread in rural areas in the crisis period and the country could no longer fulfil its export quota to the European Union. The data in Table 3.1 show the national cattle herd for the period 1997 to 2002 disaggregated by farming sub-sector, while Table 3.2 shows national cattle population data for 2002 disaggregated by farming sub-sector and by province. The tables show that communal area cattle population is higher than that for commercial farms and that over the period 1997 to 2002 communal area cattle have accounted for 60 to 71 per cent of the national herd. Over 70 per cent of the beef cattle population is in communal areas. In the Midlands and Matabeleland North provinces 77 per cent of the beef cattle population are found in communal areas. Zimbabwe has a national goat population of 2.9 million in 1999 40
Moving forward in Zimbabwe Reducing poverty and promoting growth Table 3.1: Beef cattle 7 population trend, 1997-2002 (in million head). Year LSCF CA SSCF OR A1 A2 CA% Total 1997 1.20 2.89 0.49 0.20 60.1 4.81 1998 1.56 3.50 0.40 0.22 61.6 5.68 1999 1.68 3.69 0.47 0.23 60.8 6.07 2000 1.66 3.68 0.61 0.23 59.5 6.18 2001 1.30 4.40 0.51 0.22 68.4 6.43 2002 0.51 3.90 0.55 0.25 0.15 0.07 71.3 5.43 LSCF = Large Scale Commercial Farms; CA = Communal Areas; SSCF = Small Scale Commercial Farms; OR = Old Resettlement Areas; A1 = A1 Resettlement Areas; A2 = A2 Resettlement Areas; CA% = Percentage of national herd in CA. Source: Sibanda and Khombe (2006). practically all of which is found in the communal areas (Sibanda and Khombe, 2006). These percentage figures are significant when viewed against the land area communal areas occupy, while carrying over 50 per cent of the national human population. These high livestock densities are often associated with environmental problems in the communal areas. The high livestock numbers in communal areas are not surprising and arise from the importance of livestock in the social and cultural life of the African people in the communal areas. As noted above, livestock are a form of wealth and serve a multiplicity of functions. Thus, the desire of communal area inhabitants to maximise their livestock herds is in conflict with the need to cap livestock numbers to comply with scientifically-determined livestock carrying capacities that are intended to minimise land degradation by livestock. In practice it has been difficult to persuade the farmers to comply with scientific carrying capacity recommendations. What emerges as an issue of concern, then, is what technically feasible, financially acceptable and environmentally sustainable livestock and land management systems could be used in these areas. The low numbers of cattle in the A1 and A2 resettlement schemes suggest that most of the settlers were without cattle and therefore poorly resourced for production, since cattle are a key productive asset in rural areas. This might also mean that most of those who took advantage of the reform programme were those who were not well established as farmers in communal areas and who could therefore easily relocate. Another possible reason is that the land tenure system in the A1 and A2 schemes is not entirely clear and settlers have been known to be displaced after settlement. Consequently, settlers may have delayed relocating their cattle pending the clarification of the land rights and tenure in these schemes. 3.5 The continuing importance of agriculture The foregoing analysis has shown how the interaction between climate and land use imposes production limitations in the agricultural sector. It has also shown how a racialised spatial expression of land use meant that for most of the past 100 years smallholder farmers have played a variable, and mostly marginal, role in crop production, except for maize and cotton. With the demise of large-scale commercial farming as it was known before 2000, it is clear that post-crisis agricultural reconstruction will not be about reproducing the pre-2000 agricultural structure. It will have to be about putting smallholder farmers at the centre of strategy, as they are now the main story in respect of agricultural land. We think this places smallholder farmers in a good policy position which will hopefully translate into improved livelihoods. Table 3.2: Zimbabwe’s national cattle herd disaggregated by province and farm sub-sector, 2002. Province CA LSCF SSCF OR A1 A2 CA% Total Masvingo 578,953 59,719 38,379 67,979 40,901 4,934 73.2 790,865 Manicaland 492,704 39,345 17,411 123,222 10,277 2,557 71.9 685,516 Matabeleland South 464,566 138,295 14,089 44,871 5,008 6,421 69.0 673,250 Mashonaland East 521,261 29,406 87,080 83,325 11,231 5,376 70.7 737,679 Mashoaland Central 358,898 49,226 28,469 32,054 21,419 7,540 72.1 497,606 Matabeleland North 413,685 50,454 17,376 35,779 9,323 5,536 77.7 532,153 Midlands 699,085 64,162 12,384 86,214 26,218 12,873 77.6 900,936 Mashonaland West 348,610 100,140 34,918 78,554 25,125 24,655 57.0 612,002 Total 3,877,762 530,747 250,106 551,998 149,502 69,892 5,430,007 Source: Sibanda and Khombe (2006). 41
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