THE Zimbabwean Government under the leadership of President Robert Mugabe recovered and redistributed fertile land to the rightful deprived citizens so that we must feed the nation on our own.
Out of this precious land we must produce fruits, vegetables, agricultural commodities, timber and many products that come out of the soil.
Surprisingly farmers have always mourned the absence of the market for their produce yet Zimbabwe imports some of these products.
How do these agricultural imports benefit Zimbabwe?
What do we mean when we say Zimbabwe is an agricultural country yet it continues to import farm produce?
Looking at the import bills of chicken, tomato, potato and other agricultural products have left me with many questions.
In some instances, we are paying prices for imports, which we are not prepared to pay our local farmers.
Are we not being driven into a consumer state unconsciously?
When we import agricultural products that were being produced in Zimbabwe for export before, are we not mocking President Mugabe for giving us land?
When we import farm produce, we are compromising the immunity of our farmers to market shocks.
We are creating jobs elsewhere outside our borders.
We are depriving our secondary and tertiary industries of accessible, suitable and affordable raw materials opting instead for imports that depreciate in quality while crossing rough seas, as well as appreciating in prices while covering long distances.
We underutilise the factors of production that include labour and priceless land that we inherited from our ancestors.
It is important to reflect for a moment that once upon a time, landless and land hungry aliens from the tundra invaded our land.
These land grabbers were not suited to our climate as they faced new diseases and pests.
They brought with them nothing except their wives and their flag.
They crossed treacherous rivers and mountains to reach the beautiful land of Zimbabwe.
Once in Zimbabwe, they parcelled to themselves this same fertile land driving our ancestors into inhabitable places.
They did not waste time to focus their attention on production.
Being land hungry as they were, they were shocked to find such a conducive production climate.
They used anything at their disposal including looting to get started because they brought nothing with them from England.
“Dzakave mombe dzakabva kusina uswa.”
They grew everything from vegetables to cotton and tobacco and they became very rich out of this fertile land of ours.
We had to wage a protracted Second and Third Chimurenga to eject them from our fertile land that had apparently made them obnoxiously rich.
We paid dearly to get our land back.
Sometimes I get very irritated when I hear some uninformed brothers and sisters saying we grabbed our land without compensating the white farmers.
The thousands of brothers and sisters we are retrieving from disused mine shafts and mass graves, what was their death paying for?
Do you think they will be happy in their shallow graves when they hear you saying we did not pay for repossessing our land?
We paid dearly to repossess our land.
Now when we import maize, onion, tomato, oranges, potato, chicken and wheat, are we not telling the fallen heroes that the price they paid on our behalf so that we can till the land was in vain?
Why are we importing the farm produce that we can and must produce here?
By importing wheat, soya, chicken and other products, we are removing the obligation of the farmers to feed the nation.
We are delegating the responsibility to feed the nation to foreigners and that is unacceptable in our tradition and customs.
Our food security should not be left to foreigners.
In the old days, a kingdom that fed its subjects with food from other kingdoms would eventually lose their kingdom as collateral to food secure kingdoms and same is true to this day.
Why should we import eggs for god’s sake?
We are compromising our sovereignty through lack of food security.
I reject the notion of market forces here.
There is demand for these products, which is why imports are being made. Nevertheless, farmers are crying that, they are not finding markets for their produce ending up selling to the ‘flight buyers’ who will pay them peanuts while reaping huge profits from their produce.
Farmers can produce as they have demonstrated with tobacco.
But when Government takes the farmers’ market and gives it foreigners, it is like a man who does not dress his wife properly opting to dress a ‘small house’ and then accuse the wife of not dressing properly.
Making our borders porous destroys our capacity to feed ourselves as cheap GMOs will flood our supermarkets at the expense of local products.
Farmers must never be forgiven for failing to feed the nation no matter what the circumstances.
If aliens could become filthy rich using the same land, Zimbabweans need to be more aggressive and innovative than that and feed the nation, in the process becoming filthy rich as well.
Nevertheless, for farmers to lose their produce, going bad after spending so much producing, because the supermarkets are flooded with imports is a betrayal of President Mugabe’s vision.
Zimbabwe can only recover its breadbasket status when farmers can sell their produce.
As a way forward, Government should stop the imports of farm produce so that local supply chains can germinate.
For an example, if Government progressively withdraws the import of wheat to the extent that shortages are felt as well as capacitating local wheat farmers, this country will be able to produce for domestic consumption as well as for exports. Government should begin to forge a social contract with its farmers rather than forging relations with foreign farmers who may dumb cheap products into our country.
Zimbabwe must remain a powerful producer nation in agriculture not a consumer nation.
Both Government and farmers must be sincere in their efforts in order to prevent bleeding our nation and threaten our national sovereignty.
Zimbabwe must feed itself.