The Lie of the Land

1^st June 2002

The so-called land issue really should not even be considered as an issue, as it is a by-product of the negative implications of non-existent economic policy. By going back to basics, we can see a clear vision of what our Country's problems really are. Land has been made an emotional issue through twenty years of brow beating to the extent that bonafide citizens of this Country have been classified as criminals and are even beginning to believe it.

The Helen Suzman Foundation clearly has shown, through its opinion polls, that well over 80% of rural people do not consider land as a major issue.

Yet, how many of us are convinced otherwise including policy makers and campaign strategists of the MDC. We are falling into a trap that has been set by Zanu! We know that 90+% of rural high school leavers have no intention of remaining with their parents but intend to seek employment in the cities. Their very education, and quality of it, adds to this conviction. As we know the youth are the future and are also most certainly are the present, in that they are probably the single most important group in terms of giving Zanu the boot in the forth-coming elections.

As an African and being from the plaas, l hope that l qualify in some way in presenting this argument.

Points to consider:

1. As l argued successfully with two UZ professors who produced a book essentially claiming that this Country belongs exclusively to the Shona speaking people, we are all guests in this Country. The San people are the only group who can claim originality in this part of Africa. The Bantu moved here from the Twelfth Century onwards and subsequently the Amandeble just prior to the white man and the Cape coloureds. If we really split hairs, the Portuguese came here in 1580 and so it goes on.

2. When sophisticated farming came to this country, it found the heavy soils largely unattended, as they were hard to work. They happened to be the more fertile. The vast mass of this country was unoccupied but, where agriculture existed and developed in subsistence areas, they gravitated to the light sandy soils, which were easy to cultivate. The wealthiest soils in Zimbabwe are the poorest!! These are suitable for tobacco.

3. Everywhere in the world it is an absolute minority of people that farm the land on a professional sophisticated basis. This is simply the case because overseas, the owner does the farming plus handful of labourers if he is lucky. Only 14% of Australians 'live on the land' - owners, their workers and families. In Africa (Zimbabwe) this is vastly different. The owners are very small in number but they, their workers and families constitute over 20% of the country's population.

4. As regards land area, the sophisticated farmer in this country owns only 20.6% of the total land area and, whilst the majority may be 'white' there are many coloureds, Asians and also blacks not to mention the seven thousand Bantu people who farm commercially on a smaller scale basis. They are large scale farmers and can only succeed economically by having large operations.

5. The land mass of this country is never to increase and it is a finite resource. We cannot go on indefinitely reclaiming commercial land for peasant agriculture based on the fallacy of believing that population pressure will demand it. Firstly we know that land is not the issue but the economy and the jobs and wealth that it should provide. Secondly Zimbabwe probably has one and a half million people less than officially acknowledged and next year we are believed to reach a negative population growth rate due to the scourge of Aids.

6. One hectare of roses employs thirty people and Zimbabwe now has more green housing than Holland. Does a one-hectare or twenty hectares 'rose factory' constitute a farm? Where is the dividing line between factory production and farming production? What about dairies as milk factories? When does a peri-urban plot become a farm and vulnerable to acquisition? Do these very points not illustrate the fallacy yet again of this land issue argument?

7. It should be noted at this point that the average farm worker earns three times the income of a communal farmer.

8. For some peculiar reason, foreign landholders almost head the queue when it comes to seeking areas for resettlement! Is the MDC aware that the Dutch have invested millions in our horticultural industry and have lent us technology that has employed tens of thousands of Zimbabweans and which earns us huge amounts of forex (10 - 16 billion a year). In addition, we have those that have invested in hunting and safari operations, which very easily merge into the hospitality industry (lodges). Where is the dividing line to give justification to those who wish to take land? Will we not be taking from those who are employed in these labour intensive industries and giving to those who really constitute people of middle age who actually have traditional land in communal areas. Zanu's existing policy actually encourages economic migrants and investors in our agriculture. These people strongly support democracy and are some of the most generous donors towards bringing the reality to fruition.

9. Foreign investment is encouraged in all industries but is it to be outlawed or be discouraged in industries that happen to bear the unfortunate label of 'farming'. Is this not hypocrisy?

10. Are we not witnessing the targeting of a group of productive professional people who, in actual fact, are the front line in defending a viable economy and a prosperous people, as well as a front line in confronting the onslaught of an evil and greedy regime?

11. More than 70% of all commercial farms have changed hands since 1980 and not only that, but under the hostile and racist gaze of a Zanu Government. This is surely, under these extraordinary circumstances, one of the most profound gestures of commitment to and patriotism for our Country. These new owners are often university educated and have made a new start in what they thought was a new country excepting that their investment and dedication would be within the constraints of a nationalist mentality Government

12. When I worked for the Department of Lands and Natural Resources, our members were devoted, along with ADF, Conex and others, to promoting wise land use with the peasants. This country proudly was heralded as the best conserved in the world and any flight over the former TTLs would vindicate this by the mass of contoured lands. Master Farmers abounded and productivity rose. Irrigation schemes were set up in each tribal area with a view to feeding the whole population in the event of drought. Farmers and ADF arranged the use of pedigree bulls and technical extension was on the increase from groundnuts to beef and maize. The point here is that land mass is not an issue either, but productivity.

13. If you were to read the notes of the NC's (Native Commissioners), land that was allocated to protect tribal people from the incessant advance of development by miners and farmers. They (NC's) would often ride for hours on horseback to move from one group of huts to the next, running the gauntlet of elephant, buffalo and lion. The vast percentage of land was not utilised.

14. I participated as one of two surveyors in the very first land settlement scheme (Soti Source, just North of Gutu) and l was witness to the hypocrisy of Zanu right at the very beginning. We surveyed electricity, water, school sites, arable land etc. and the PC's and Mujiba, along with Gutu Zanu business people, ended up with the land and turned it into a desert in a very short time. At most, Badza and a small packet of seed was issued.

15a. 9 million hectares of land has been acquired (legally) since 1980. Only 20% has been settled - most in a haphazard way.

15b. 900 commercial farms have been 'acquired' and sold or leased under dubious terms to Zanu officials and their friends. Most farms are now derelict and less than 10% are believed to be even productive.

15c. There are other large areas of State land particularly in the West of the country, which are under utilised.

15d. We have available the vast areas owned by the Cold Storage (CSC) and also ARDA.

15e. Van Hoogenstraten (Zanu supporter) owns nearly one percent of Zimbabwe's land.

Why do we need land for the 'andless'(jobless)?:  

16. Between 45 and 50% of all forex is earned by 20% of our landmass - large-scale commercial farming. This same business is the largest single
employer in the country.

17. We ask why all of the above and really it boils down to the fact that if you are a 'white' African and are not associated with the ruling regime, you have no legitimacy! It is largely racial and a question of the greedy endeavouring to get their hands on one of the most efficient and productive agricultural economies in the world.

They are simply either using the wealth that they hope to grab as their reason or politically promote the issue as the 'haves' and 'haves not' in an attempt to lure votes from the povo.

To answer on the land policy:

1. Every country in the world has a land utilisation policy to enable it to build roads, cities etc.

2. The MDC will acquire land for various uses such as irrigation schemes, eco tourism development (cross border wildlife area/RSA, Zim and Moz) as well as specific agricultural developmental areas. They will develop commercial agriculture out of peasant subsistence and additional land may be required for that. This should be together with education and extension to ensure that productivity does not suffer. All sectors of society, irrespective of race, must be encouraged to take up farming as a business.

3. The MDC will adopt land title as a corner stone of its policy which will at the same time depoliticise land altogether. Title will ensure that intensive development will take place in the over 23 million hectares of communal and resettlement land. Ncube or Chifamba will be able to borrow three hundred thousand dollars, put down a borehole and install a small irrigation scheme and employ labour as a result. In the local business centre he will require the services of a light engineering works, electricians, plumbers, suppliers of seed and fertiliser and so on. 

This will create wealth on a wide scale and ensure that this vast swathe of land becomes productive to the point where it no longer subsists, but a cash economy flourishes that earns forex and employs others in the area. These two gentlemen can then purchase other title deeds and expand. They in turn will attract investment from established commercial farmers and outside interests and so on.

The original commercial farming sector will be encouraged to expand their contact with previously communal farmers, extend the field days and extension work and, as a result, community relations will improve not to mention race/tribal relations - Wealth creation not land occupation.

In other words, it is not about land mass and land area, but about productivity and wealth creation. The present population density of the communal areas is only 30 souls per square kilometre vs. 20 per square kilometre in commercial farms!

Can you imagine highly organised structures (kibbutz like) where neat and tidy community centres are built with infrastructure alongside irrigation schemes, designated arable lands and fenced grazing areas.

Will there be a need for more land? NO. We have the means and the capacity to create wealth amongst those that remain rural probably largely as traditional homes and then industrialise for the educated majority.

4. With industrialisation for which this country has enormous potential when we look at the incredible mineral, agricultural and human resources the urban drift will be accommodated. Just look at agriculture and you have tanneries, meat works, jam factories, textile mills, shoe manufactures, cigarette manufactures and tobacco processing and so on and so on. This is before we even begin to consider the enormity of the potential in other industrial areas. The excess 'labour pool' emanating from rural schools and institutions will be accommodated. This is a fantastic resource being wasted. Go back to the Rhodesian days when there was no 'land pressure' as at Christmas time the Foreman would ask his workers to please bring their brothers and cousins as we are short of workers. We had to cross our borders and ended up with hundreds of thousands of Malawians and Mozambiqueans most of whom have been treated as second-class citizens in the country they call their home.

5. If we set guidelines and tax on the basis of productivity (very positive) will not the new commercial farmer fall victim to this policy as he may not have the productive capacity to exonerate himself from this additional tax.

In essence a business is being mad a scapegoat and used as a political football. We must not fall into the trap of putting these frontline troops in the trenches only to subject them to a firing squad when the battle is won. These people are a community themselves, they earn 35% of all the country's foreign currency and 40% of GDP and are some of the world's most sophisticated and productive farmers producing the world's finest cotton, tobacco, beef, flowers and vegetables.

They provide employment for around five hundred thousand people; have instituted health education programmes, Aids awareness, technical extension, education, and are a huge buying power for the rest of the economy from coal to machinery and packaging.

No matter what their colour, their farm is their home (they know no other), their profession and their livelihood.

Simon Spooner