Zimbabwe -- The price of recklessness

Financia Gazette (Zim) ^ | January 39, 2003 | (comment page)

[Clive]

AFTER more than two years of relentless hostility towards white landowners, there are signs that the government is now cosying up to Zimbabwe’s discarded white farmers as its chickens come home to roost.

The Ministry of Agriculture and representatives of the Commercial Farmers’ Union (CFU) have held meetings in the past week, the main aim of which seems to be to charm the CFU’s members into making available resources that newly resettled farmers cannot do without.

The commercial farmers, who the ruling ZANU PF has in the past more or less invited to pack up and leave the country, are now being assured that land will be made available to them if they wish to continue farming.

The government is at pains to convince the public that this has been its policy all along.

But Zimbabweans will be forgiven for cynically questioning the timing of this reconciliatory stance, coming as it does when it has become glaringly obvious that like so many of the government’s policies, the land reforms were not well thought out beforehand and have been shoddily implemented.

The inevitable consequences of the reckless seizure of commercially productive land in a haphazard programme that lacked transparency are now being felt by the nation as a whole: close to eight million Zimbabweans need emergency food aid and countless farm workers are jobless and homeless.

The tobacco industry, the country’s single largest foreign currency earner, is on the verge of collapse as are many other companies that rely on agriculture for inputs and markets.

And there is no end in sight to this litany of problems.

Resettled farmers have no money to buy inputs or hire agricultural equipment and the government is unable to assist them. As a result, they cannot produce enough food to sustain themselves and their families, let alone a country facing a potentially devastating drought for the second successive year.

In addition, Agriculture Minister Joseph Made has indicated that the government intends to repossess land allocated to beneficiaries that have not come forward to claim it.

It is estimated that this applies to more than 60 percent of allocated land, which is unoccupied and is not being farmed about two months into the 2003 agricultural season.

Indeed, reports at the weekend suggest that a recent audit of the land reform programme has found that far from benefiting landless peasants and aspiring black commercial farmers, the agrarian reforms have only facilitated the further unchecked looting of national resources by ruling party officials and their cronies.

In short, recent events would seem to suggest that the government has finally realised what everyone knew all along and tried in vain to make clear to it: that a land reform strategy that is not transparent, well-funded and addresses the issue of poverty is not sustainable.

If indeed ZANU PF has reached the same conclusion as all rational Zimbabweans, then immediate and comprehensive steps must be taken to stamp out the chaos in the farming sector, which happens to be the backbone of the country’s tottering economy.

Securing equipment from commercial farmers is only addressing one of the manifestations of a deep-seated problem that can only be corrected if the Ministry of Agriculture returns to the drawing board.

If Zimbabwe is to regain its status as a regional bread basket, then the government will have to admit its mistakes and commit itself to a land reform plan that will put the interests of the neediest first, be adequately funded, respect property rights and, above all, be transparent.

No patriotic Zimbabwean disputes the need to redress colonial imbalances by redistributing land. But the government must abandon the populist measures that have already come back to haunt it.

[Clive]

Commercial Farmers’ Union leadership (its president Colin Cloete in particular) has been entirely too willing to appease the government and to believe its assurances and undertakings.

The government has repeatedly used this tendency to its short-term advantage and to the long-term disadvantage of commercial farmers and of agriculture and Zim's food security.

[Clive]

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[happygrl]

BUMP!

[junta]

We hear this kind of shlock in the USA as well. It goes like this, first the Mau Mau, then the failure, followed by muted conciliatory comments and white liberal mewlings for this or that to "heal" the situation.

[Clive]

"We hear this kind of shlock in the USA as well. It goes like this, first the Mau Mau, then the failure, followed by muted conciliatory comments and white liberal mewlings for this or that to "heal" the situation."

Exactly.

And Mugabe and Mbeki are masters at playing that game.

[jimt]

The author uses lots of contradictory and unclear terms. How do you "redistribute land" and "respect property rights"? What characterizes a "transparent" program? The old one seemed VERY transparent to me: solidify socialism and one man rule by race baiting.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Badly beaten Zimbabwean commercial farmer Michael Caine (C) arrives at a hospital in Harare January 27, 2003. Caine was beaten by settlers on his farm, who used bicycle chains, knobkerries (wooden batons) and an axe handle. Although his farm has not yet been acquired by the Zimbabwe government, militant settlers have taken over the land and refused to let him farm his land. REUTERS/Paul Cadenhead

[xJones]

Securing equipment from commercial farmers...

I'm surprised the government hasn't seized all farming equipment stored in Zimbabwe by now. But let's assume Cloete and friends generously hand over tons of farming equipment to the newly settled farmers. Where is the fuel coming from to run them? And with what money/food could competant farm workers be paid to help the neophyte farmers grow anything? The odds are very high that the equipment would end up trashed.

This doesn't even take into account the critical shortage of seed and fertilizer for the new *farmers*. Where is that coming from? Mugabe and Made are so out of touch with reality that they apparently thought crops just spring up out of the ground, everybody could do it. Now they seem to have adjusted (temporarily) to the thought that luring white men back in might be the right voo doo to make things grow again. Infrastructure, bank loans, planning for droughts, all that is too arcane and difficult for their primative tribalist comprehensions. Planning, constructive long-range objectives are beyond them. The Zanu PF leaders believed that Zimbabwe was their personal endless pig trough they could swill out of indefinitely.

And of course, any white farmer that would trust the Zanu PF at this late date and try to somehow start commercial farming again on previously seized land would be an absolute idiot and an would-be enabler of Zanu PF (yes, that's you, Mr. Cloete).

[Clive]

Land can be redistributed while respecting property rights by purchasing land from commercial farmers at fair market value based on the "willing seller to willing buyer" principle, then providing assistance to indigenous farmers or aspiring new farmers to purchase the land from the redistribution agency, perhaps after requiring the new farmer that he show that he has some farm experience (perhaps as a farm employee) or has attended an agriculture college (this so that land will get to those who can put it to work).

Britain was willing to participate in the cost of land acquisition on a "willing seller" basis but Mugabe had different ideas.

Note that by the time Mugabe started the land invasions, about 15 percent of the members of the Commercial Farmers Union were blacks and the number was gradually increasing.

[Jim Noble]

>>No patriotic Zimbabwean disputes the need to redress colonial imbalances by redistributing land<<

Anyone who lives in Zimbabwe and who does not dispute the "need" to redistribute land is a moron and deserves to starve.

This "need" is entirely fictitious, and the hunger problem will not be resolved until the "redistributed" land is returned to its rightful owners, if any of them are available to farm.

There is no clearer example in the world today of the connection between false ideas ("no one disputes the need to redistribute land") and bad consequences.

[Clive]

"This "need" is entirely fictitious, ... "

The need is a political one and not an economic one, and the two often conflict, as is the case in Zim.

It is perceptions, which in politics can be as real as facts.

It is conventional wisdom to which proponent and opponent must defer.

It is "Maître Chez Nous".

In fact, in the developed world, land use is going the other way. It is being concentrated into the hands of agriculture corporations and the farmers are becoming employees and managers getting union wages or management contract salaries, for that is the economic imperative.

It is, however, an imperative which Africa must ignore in deference to the "Maître Chez Nous" imperative as dictated by African conventional wisdom.

[jimt]

I'll concede you have reconciled "property rights" and "land redistribution". But there's a lot of "ifs" in there - where does the government get the dough initially, are the sellers coerced, etc.

I'm not big on goobermint social engineering, even well-intentioned social engineering. Your 15% number sounds like black farmers were moving in the right direction before Mugabe's heavy hand entered the picture.

I prefer color-blind governments.

Many thanks for your great posts.

[Clive]

"I'll concede you have reconciled "property rights" and "land redistribution". But there's a lot of "ifs" in there - where does the government get the dough initially, are the sellers coerced, etc."

Please understand that I am not an advocate of government land redistribution projects. They are simply a fact of life in Africa. See my reply number 11.

Government acquisition of land, whether by expropriation or by buying the land on the open market, has a significant impact on the market forces. Allowing market forces to work and helping new farmers to get a new start by helping them with investment loans and in some cases grants can have a lesser impact.

Letting an individual borrow the money to buy or lease a farm and allowing him to reap the rewards of competence or bear the cost of failure has a much better chance of producing an effective indigenous agrarian sector.

Yes, the 15% figure represents a measure of progress.

The Brits were willing to contribute to the cost of the initial land acquisition. Mugabe preferred to steal it. Perhaps "robbery with violence" is a more accurate description of what is happening.

BTW:
As to coercion. Every regime has provisions for expropriation of land for public purposes, and many have, at least "de facto if not de jure confiscated land without adequate compensation. Ask any landowner who has been told that he cannot use his land because there is a few inches of water covering it during some migratory season.

Or ask the farmers of Klamath Falls who were levied for the cost of maintaining an impound dam and were then told that they can't use the impounded water because some bottom feeding fish might thereby be impaired.