On the collapse of agriculture in Zimbabwe
Ben Freeth says there has not been a year since 2001 when the country has not needed food aid to feed the poor
Agriculture in Zimbabwe: What is the future?
Presentation by Ben Freeth, Zimbabwe
If we are to understand the future of agriculture in Zimbabwe we need to understand the past. Why was Zimbabwe such a successful country agriculturally in the past? So what has happened to make it so spectacularly unsuccessful in recent years? What can we do about the future?
What made Zimbabwe Succeed in the past?
By 1975 the UN Agricultural Year Book ranked this country 2nd in the world for yields of maize, wheat, soya and groundnuts, and 3rd for cotton. In a combined ranking of these crops we were first in the world. Our tobacco was rated the best in the world in both yield and quality. Our beef was second to none in the markets of Europe.
There is not a single natural lake in Zimbabwe; and yet when you fly over Zimbabwe you see bodies of water everywhere. There are over 10,000 of them. Excluding SA, 80% of the African continent’s dams were built in this country – including the biggest man-made dam in the world at the time [Lake Kariba, constructed between 1955 and 1959].
What was it that made agriculture develop so fast and so successfully in Zimbabwe? It is very simple: property rights through title deeds – protected by the rule of law. If a farmer was not successful, the bank sold his farm to a farmer who was successful – and that farm developed further and became more productive.
What Zimbabwe’s current situation?
But where are we now? I don’t need to tell you. We are in disaster!
http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/media_stream/politicsweb/1/1283921/images/Freeth1.jpg
Graph courtesy Robertson Economic Information Services, Zimbabwe
Yes tobacco is moving back up to levels where it was 15 years ago – but at huge expense to the environment – with 300,000 hectares of trees being cut down to cure the crop each year – and if we had expanded as our main competitors have expanded we would be producing 3 times our present output.
Milk is down by 80% on what it was at peak production; beef is down by 80%; coffee is down by 90%; paprika is down by 95%; wheat is down by 95%; employment levels are at what they were half a century ago – when we had less than half the population. The Manufacturing sector production has fallen nearly 70%. The Maize crop is a disaster every year. In fact there is not a year since 2001 when we have not needed food aid to feed the poor – most of those poor being “farmers” – farmers without property rights!
Our GDP, which was bigger than the GDPs of Kenya, Lesotho, Tanzania and Zambia, has now halved and is smaller than all those countries. It is estimated to fall another 5% or so this year.
Why has Zimbabwe failed agriculturally?
As a country we have fallen into poverty. Why? What has changed to collapse all that was so spectacularly successful in the past? We all know the answer: the rule of law and property rights have been systematically destroyed through racist and violent policies in the agricultural sector by our government.
We have been left behind. From being 2nd in the world in maize yields our national average maize yield is now less than half a ton a hectare. In the USA the average yield is over 9 tons per hectare – and they grow 39 million hectares. So we need over 18 hectares to produce the same amount of grain that an American farmer needs only 1 hectare for. It is a tragedy. With Zimbabwe’s current abysmal national yields we would need a land area the size of the continent of Australia to grow as much maize as the USA does. American farmers only need a land area the size of Zimbabwe to produce that amount.
Last year in the USA we saw a new world record set of 504 bushels per acre by a farmer called Randy Dowdy in Georgia. In our language that is 31.6 tons per hectare. I get excited about that. But in Zimbabwe we need over 60 hectares to produce what Randy Dowdy produces on 1 hectare. And yet our yields could be where America’s are today if property rights and the rule of law existed in Zimbabwe.
What is the future?
So what is the future?
I am going to Singapore next month. This is a country that is a great success story. It gained independence from Britain the same year as Kenya did. Both Singapore and Kenya had a GDP per capita of 500 USD. Kenya over the last 50 years, managed to grow their GDP per capita to 3,000 USD.
Singapore had no natural resources – but they put in a policy of zero tolerance for corruption – and are ranked as the least corrupt Asian country and the 7th least corrupt country in the world; they put in an exemplary justice system; they established secure property rights and they established a small government with very low taxation. They created what is ranked the second freest economy in the world after Hong Kong.
Singapore is now one of the 5 biggest financial centres in the world and has a GDP per capita of about 83,000 USD – 28 times that of Kenya – less than 4%. It won’t surprise you that Kenya is considered to be in the bottom 20% of the world in corruption.
Another country I hugely admire is Botswana – right on our border. Their economy at their independence was 25 times smaller than the Zimbabwean economy. Their GDP in 1966 was a mere 51 million – and ours was 1.282 Billion. Their economy was 4% the size of ours. Their government made a strong stand against corruption – and is currently ranked in the top 20% in the world of least corrupt countries – the least corrupt country in Africa by far – while Zimbabwe is ranked in the bottom 10% by Transparency International. Botswana established the rule of law; and they protected individual property rights and developed the freest economy in Africa after Mauritius. Now their economy is significantly larger than Zimbabwe’s – with 8 times the GDP per capita.
It is not rocket science: Property rights and the rule of law – with a proper justice system, a small government and a free economy [Zimbabwe is ranked in the bottom 2% in the world in terms of economic freedom].
That is it. It is very simple. If that happens in Zimbabwe, our economic future will be great. If it does not, we will continue to fail as a country.
http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/media_stream/politicsweb/1/1283921/images/Freeth2.jpg
Graph courtesy Robertson Economic Information Services
Agriculture can bring Zimbabwe out of poverty; but so long as the toxic Section 72 of our Constitution remains in place; so long as court orders are allowed to continue to be ignored; so long as the law and international court judgments are allowed to continue to be spurned; so long as our government continues to justify racism and practice it in defiance of every human rights charter ever written, agriculture will continue to fail. Racist and corrupt kleptocracies will always fail their people.
What do we need to do?
More and more there is a realization of what needs to be done to get agriculture going again. It really would not take too long. The land is out there. The former farm workers are out there. The dams are out there. Much of the infrastructure is still in place. The title deeds and the survey beacons are still out there. The institutional memory within the financial systems is there. The back-up industry is still in place – and where it isn’t, South Africa is across the Limpopo with its back-up industry. With title deeds being respected, much of the skills base would return in one form or another.
But at the moment the State owns approximately 90% of the land of Zimbabwe – and the State [through the ZANU PF Party] is very much in control of the people on that land. No civilization in history has ever been built successfully on such a basis – and the past 15 years has shown we are not going to change that trend.
The vast land area that is now vested in the President and the State needs to be put into the hands of private individuals. The communal people need title. The 20% of Zimbabwe’s land that has been lawlessly and violently grabbed and dished out to cronies who are not farmers, needs to be returned to the title deed holders or bought by people who are going to farm it.
In Eastern Europe, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Mozambique, and other countries where predatory Marxist dictators have grabbed private property from individuals and nationalized them – that private property has been returned to those private individuals. We all know people who have gone back with their title deeds and claimed back their property in those places. In Zimbabwe many of those title deed holders who have had their properties nationalised will say they don’t want to farm any more. They will then have the option to sell to farmers who do.
Whatever happens, property rights need to be re-established. That is the future. It seems impossible at the current time – just as it seemed impossible in the past to people living in similar totalitarian dictatorships where private sector assets were nationalized ; but it is not impossible. It has happened in those other countries – and it can happen here.
If Zimbabwe’s leaders in the future want Zimbabwe to go forward, they will have to take the bull by the horns and establish property rights, obey court judgments such as our one in the SADC Tribunal, and follow the rule of law. It is our duty, for the future of our country, to employ every means at our disposal to educate, take court cases, build public opinion, present evidence, write literature, lobby, and make secure property rights something that is a non negotiable. If we do not do that duty, and if property rights continue to be denied to the people of Zimbabwe, the countries which have property rights will have to continue to feed the people on the land in Zimbabwe who do not. It is as simple as that.
Ben Freeth is Executive Director of the Mike Campbell Foundation
9 Replies to “Zimbabwe’s Agricultural-Disaster Can Be Fixed Anytime, Easily”
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Listen you uneducated Shona savage…neither can you Shona idiots call Zimbabwe yours, you emigrated here from foreign lands. The bushmen were here before you savages! You must remember one thing, the white man always wins, we are patient, we still dominate the economy, we still own homes and live amongst you, we dine in white owned restaurants, our kids go to white owned schools, we go to white Doctors and not witch doctors like you fools! Like the rest of Africa the black boy has proved beyond doubt that you are good for nothing and that you are totally reliant on the Western white folk for financial and food aid from the white folk. We like watching you grovel, we like watching you treat each other as savages, beating each other, killing each other, screwing donkeys and dogs. Come on man, surely you cannot expect us white folk to condpsider you anything other than barbaric savages!!! You’ve destroyed every single part of the economy that the white folk were involved in building. I also want you to listen very very carefully to me…if the white folk wanted to eliminate you cowardly savages who are part of the mob who think they own Zimbabwe, that includes that savage Mugabe and ALL his top idiots, they would have done so long ago. Remember comrade, a “Drone” is capable of being operated from anywhere in the world. If x chose to eliminate the top 50 savages, with 10 drones they could take out 5 houses each in less than an hour!!!! The entire operation would be over in less than an hour…50 houses with their despicable Shona thieving looting occupants gone for ever. AND guess what, the world will celebrate, so will every normal Zimbabwean. We can then hunt down all the little gangs if thieves like the war vets, the Chiyangwas of Zim, and all the politically well connected. I think it will happen!!!!!! N
And you Ben, thank you for your opinions. I like a lot of what you said. You’ve fallen into the same pitfall of using the forbidden words. You don’t own anything here. We can accept you using your brain and capital to bring forth yeilds. But don’t think we will give you ownership. Never! Would you give up your wife for any reason or justification. Your wife is till death. Our land also, is till death. Don’t say “our land”! It’s not your land. Never was, never will be. Please take note.
Bushcat, I am restraining myself from insulting you. There are only a few words that you whites use about Zimbabwe that revile every Zimbo. These words are:
My land
Our land
No white man must ever use these words to refer to any square metre of Zimbabwe. Don’t ever! Listen to me Bushcat, you don’t own anything in Zimbabwe, and that includes the clean air that we breathe. Zimbabwe belongs to us, the indigenous blacks. You call us savages oh! These savages have something that you wanted neh. Who traveled thousands of miles via perilous waters to come and rob the savages of their land? I am restraining myself. Respect us. We will grow. We are world wonder. We will shine. Leave us alone. Leave the savages alone. We are not idiots. If we were, we would not have managed to kick you out of our land.
It’s no suprise what Ben is talking about he lost a farm and earnings from agriculture and naturally he will have no kind opinions about the current state of agriculture in Zimbabwe. This is the same argument all the white farmers will put up in trying to prove that the land reform has failed. What has happened is exactly what everyone knew wold happen. Production on the land would go down and a lot of capital would be needed etc. The fact is that the intention of the land reform was to take the land from a minority white farmers and give it for free to the majority black Zimbabweans which has happened and is irreversible. There was never a promise that there would be bumper harvests etc that was never the intention of the land reform. The new land owners are not in some kind of competition with anyone to prove anything so they can take their time to settle and establish themselves with the resources available to them. After all its their own country and land, the notion that every piece of land must have a deed attached to it sounds nice but it’s a tool for possession of land the white settlers used to acquire the good land. Zimbabwe can afford to lease the vast land for almost a century to the new settlers so they can have the full benefit of good and accessible land. These figures of how much Zimbabwe farmers used to produce etc were relevant to the kind of economy of that time. Where black farm workers were treated worse than dogs by most commercial farmers and confirmed to compounds with rubbish housing and no pensions. I have not heard Ben spell out the agricultural output figures at the time the new settler white farmers were allocated land in Rhodesia. The truth is that the output was low until the farmers had settled and had been given support and infrastructures and it took decades. So this article by Ben is just another lobby to keep hopes of regaining the farm he lost back but the truth is that it’s a lost cause.
Njeleele, on second thoughts comrade I think might pay you a little visit the next time I see you in Gokwe! By the way, who is going to train you shonas how to farm, you are all illiterate so you won’t be able to be taught. It’s strange how you’ve all helped destroy Africa and here’s you living in some kind of dreamworld believing that you can resuscitate farming in Zim. What an ignorant idiot you are, believing your own lies like your thieving boss man Mugabe! He tells 100 lies a day and here are idiots like you believing them all! I drove through Gokwe the other day, I did not see one tractor, instead I saw a few donkeys and women sitting on the side of the road selling a few tomatoes, worms and firewood…that’s not farming the land you silly idiotic savage! That is poverty, brought about by that savage Mugabe and all his thieving hangers ons…
I’m curious what happened to your look east policy…they came, they looted and they went leaving behind a few fools to keep you lot happy.
Let me tell you one thing for free…every single white man laughs at you lot, we ALL know how useless you are. We all know you will never be able to grow your own food!!! You will always be totally reliant on the white folk to do it all for you, whether you like it or not, that is the truth…and from now on we will always take advantage of that!!
Hey Njeleele, you useless uneducated idiot, even you yourself agree to the fact that everything in Rhodesia worked and the minute you idiots took control you destroyed it all. I’m not interested in your useless Qualifications, they mean nothing to your starving brothers in Zimbabwe. Why are there a million Shona idiots now living in the UK, having run away from Zimbabwe? Because they prefer working for the white man, they know he will pay them and that if there is a dispute they have the courts to fall back on. It’s not Rhodesian nostalgia you uneducated savage, it’s the truth! You must remember one thing in life, the white man never gives up! Where were you comrade during the struggle, holed up in some western foreign land, you certainly weren’t in Mozambique or Zambia because with your mentality you were too stupid to fight, you would have had your head blown off for standing up at the wrong time! Typical Shona savage going on about sanctions…what sanctions you useless fool? Oh yes, that’s right I forgot, you all want to lay those dirty thieving pilfering black hands on the white mans Western money!!! Well I’ll tell you something for free, the white man won’t be giving you idiots any more money now or in the future, those days are gone. The foreign white folk have seen how you have destroyed the economy and plundered looted and pillaged everything. You stupid idiot, if you think your Shona brothers are going to get farming right then why haven’t they done it in 15 years…it never ever took the white man that long to get his act together!!! Oh I forgot, sanctions are the reason! Go back to your mud hut and send your wife to the river to fetch water while you drink your chibuku . Why have all the black owned banks gone broke, with all the Shona senior management looting all the depositors funds and then running away with all the money to England? Why did your Shona brothers destroy our currency and now you use the white mans currency. You ignorant uneducated idiot you cannot argue the fact that you are a useless tribe of thieving fools!!! Now piss off back to where you came from you thief, before I come and hunt you down!!!
Neo -colonial Bushcats can have Rhodesian nostalgia in vain. Black Zimbabweans, both Shonas and Ndebeles will improve their agricultural production with time. Yes the coming of the white did a lot to rub an improved standard of living among the black people, but that was no justification to preach to us the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in order to confine us to slavery level in our motherland. We dont regret taking our land because of the current slump in production. I read the social history of UK at the London School of Economics and know very well there was time when England also had primitive social level before the current development. When English people slept like mine and suffered from lice.. That country also went through lack of democracy under dictating Kings . If UK never experienced starvation, was that word coined by the Shonas? Stop joking about your children recolonizing our children? Zimbabweans are not BOER fearing like the black South Africans whose MANDELA got a Nobel Prize together with de Klerk for protection Boer economic interests in the SA constitution. NEHANDA forbid!
Ben Freeth is correct that our agricultural production has plummeted. I totally differ with him on what needs to done to improve production. The Zimbabwe government is aware and concerned also about the need to improve production on the farms. The solution is not to bring back Boers , but to train and give capacity to the black farmers. That is possible. The two major problems now are the cost structure fix occasioned by the use of the US dollar and the economic sanctions imposed by the West. The question of title deeds is not the major solution as he emotionally moves into Rhodesian nostalgia. With training , capacity and government financial support ,like what happened in Rhodesia,black farmers can produce. There were leased productive farms in Rhodesia. Its not the title deeds that will attract funding, but ability to pay the loan . Manufacturing companies can borrow while they operate in factories they dont own,but bankers accept those who show ability to produce and service the loans. AFC , which was government funded supported white farmers religiously. So Ben Freeth stands on his head on our land issue. Zimbabwe will not reverse its land reform and be subjected to the SADC TRIBUNAL DECISIONS ON OUR LAND ISSUE. Freeth can jump into dirty water of THAMES RIVER and drown to hell!
Ben my dear friend, these Shona savages would far rather live from hand to mouth and beg the white folk in the west for food aid while the thieves at the helm loot, plunder, steal, pillage and pinch everything that we’ve invested our hard earned cash in. The bottom line is that they are very jealous of the white man and ALL his success stories while they continue to destroy everything they touch. Look, the white man tried to educate them and show them how to build a brick and mortar home and how to use tractors and other equipment to farm with….BUT, instead they choose to continue living in mud huts, learning a bit under a tree in the bush and stopping school at the average age of 10 and then they prefer using donkeys to draw a plough made out of the trunk of a tree???? They are the most backward tribe on the African Continent. No wonder Ian Smith didn’t want them to rule, he’d had a look at the rest of black Africa and the mess it was in and knew that if and when these Shona savages lay their hands on the economy they will destroy it!!! Which they have done!!! Ben, let them starve, put a stop to foreign aid from the West, let them run to their Chinese masters who are looting the country blind. We will all watch for the time being, but our children will recolonize the country!!!!