Rhosarian 2019

The Rhosarian 1/19
36
Scene 8
As we had been ordered to cease production,
all work in the greenhouses came to an abrupt
halt. We were not allowed to continue during that
fortnight to irrigate, fertilize or harvest the crops
in the greenhouses, so it was pointless to throw
good money after bad. We were then, after all,
allowed to stay on, but with two ‘settlers’.
Mount Lothian is a small farm of just over 550
hectares, of which only 250 hectares are arable.
Its size complied with the maximum farm size for
this area, as laid down by government. But it
seemed that government policy was to make
farmers downsize their farms and co-exist with
either Al peasant farmers or A2 large-scale settlers
who wished to farm commercially, with the
previous owner farming the rest of the land.
Government policy sub-divided the settlers
into two categories, Al and A2. The former were
allocated 10 to 30 hectares, depending on the
Natural Region, in many cases hardly enough for
their own requirements. They were grouped
together to facilitate the distribution of fertilizer
and seed. But there was no provision for
infrastructure such as wells, boreholes and
buildings. These Al settlers were just dumped on
the land and largely left to fend for themselves.
The A2 settler group consisted of people who
were allocated substantial areas, sometimes part
of a white-owned commercial farm, or more often
the whole farm. They were given 200 to 400
hectares, depending on soil and rainfall and
therefore the Natural Region division, and in
theory had adequate financial resources of their
own to supplement government loans. There was,
however, no acreage limitation for the elite, and
many simply seized a number of farms.
It was in the A2 category that every High Court
judge, except two, and four of the seven judges of
the Supreme Court took one farm or more, as did
almost every Cabinet minister and senior official
in the public service. Importantly, they were
supposed, immediately on occupation, to start to
build their own house, workshop and other farm
buildings and facilities, and, if they were not
going to live on the farm themselves, to employ a
manager. But many simply used the farm as a
weekend retreat. Of course, production fell
LOOKING BACK
October 2019
dramatically. In most cases not only was the
original farmer evicted but all his workers and
their families were as well.
Many of the best farms in Enterprise, one of
the best farming areas in the country, had been set
aside for the elite. The two ‘settlers’ allocated our
farm were the then Judge President of the High
Court, Mr Justice Paddington Garwe, and a retired
army colonel, Godfrey Matemachani.
Although under ministry of Agriculture
regulations, the farm had been classified as too
small for subdivision, we undertook to downsize
it to half its previous area, so that we farmed half,
while Garwe and Matemachani farmed the other
half. The Provincial Office approved the
downsizing and the subdivision of the farm. We
agreed to co-exist and to help and teach the new
farmers the basics of farming. But they had no
experience, no equipment and minimal capital.
...
We believed that if we did not downsize and
co-exist we would probably lose the whole farm.
It was obvious that both the settlers needed us in
order to farm at all. They were quite frank about
this, and admitted they had no farming experience.
The judge did not have much money to invest and
the retired colonel worked for the Commercial
Bank of Zimbabwe in a management position.
We therefore negotiated that the farm would
be subdivided on a 50-50 basis and we would do
everything for them to start them off. The
agreement we produced, with top legal advice on
our side, took months to conclude but was
eventually signed by all parties in February 2003.
This formal legal agreement laid down that we
would manage the settlers’ section for the first
year, they would pay only for direct costs and
there would be no charge for my time or for
overhead costs. At the same time we would try to
teach them the fundamental aspects of practical
agriculture. What we did was a gesture of goodwill
and we hoped to provide a demonstration of what
could be done. How wrong we were!
Insidious Takeover
We tilled the land, we planted the land, we
grew the crop, we harvested the crop, we helped
them source fertilizer and chemicals for the crop.
We sold the crop and they got the cheque. We