By Charles T.M.J. Dube

WE have been talking business and for this week I thought it prudent to discuss farming as a business.
It is important, before going far, to begin by revisiting responses from peasant agriculture to the establishment of mines and tertiary industries by the settlers around 1904.
This was marked by an unexpectedly high response by locals to participate in the agricultural sector.
In fact, they produced an agricultural surplus that effectively out-competed the settler-farmers’.
After 1903/4, settlers accounted for only five percent of total acreage under cultivation and less than 10 percent of the total market output for the same season, with Africans receiving more than 350 000 Sterling for grain and livestock.
It is important to note that the tilting of agricultural production between the races had to be achieved through deliberate policy initiatives by settlers specifically designed to reduce the peasants into a labour force rather than the competitors that they had become.
It is therefore imperative that any racial myths on race and productivity be quashed from the onset.
When we discuss farming, we should therefore be aware that we are discussing what we have always been and what was the hub of the pre-colonial economy; a way of life for the indigenes.
In his contribution last week, Professor Sheunesu Mpepereki touched on how white collar jobs have been mistakenly substituted for the ideal to an extent where in my own view, any other vocation is viewed as a sidekick to supplement income from a white collar full-time vocation.
Thus, most of the people involved in these alternative pursuits will spend more than 80 percent of their working time on the white collar job, leaving the remainder to leisure and the sidekick.
It is high time those who choose farming as a vocation desist from treating it as an alternative venture.
When we talk of unemployment, invariably we include those who have access to land and could be making a living out of it, but for the sidekick that we have reduced farming to.
The majority of those with three ‘O’-Levels, with access to land, regard themselves as unemployed if they do not get a formal job outside farming.
Farming is a business and should be treated as such and once we realise that, there will be less mourning for jobs.
Our industries are agro-based and yearn for inputs which are not forthcoming. Once we talk business, then we begin to talk economics.
Economics is a discipline to do with making choices when faced with scarcity.
The choices are to do with what to produce and in what quantities; how to produce it and for whom?
In order to produce, you need the means of production and in classical economics these have been defined as land, labour, capital and the entrepreneur.
It is imperative that we go through these factors of production in relation to farming.
Land is there in abundance for farming.
Zimbabweans, other than those of alien origin, can trace themselves to some plot of land somewhere in the country.
It is important to realise this very land can be put to many uses and so the question of what to produce on that land arises.
However, there are limitations as to what this land can be used for in agriculture and if you have the means, it is best to seek the services of soil scientists to check on what crops could be best produced on your piece of land and what else could be done to the soils to produce the crop you are interested in.
What to produce is also determined by the market.
Which crops command what prices in the market and how easy is it for you to access that market?
What are the costs of producing your intended crop and what does your pocket, including other possible funding sources, allow you to produce?
There will also be considerations for food security, both nationally and for self-consumption.
While the colonial land tenure system had confined the majority of the population to marginal rainfall areas, the land reform exercise has seen more than 400 000 black households being resettled in former white commercial farms.
What is disappointing though is that total hectarage under cultivation has declined in both former African reserve areas and commercial farming areas.
A high literacy rate provides to those seeking hired labour the privilege to engage labourers who can follow written instructions and are capable of maintaining records.
The majority of peasant agriculture uses own labour.
It is prudent to cost even own unpaid labour to keep tags on the profitability or otherwise of one’s farming activities.
One also has to make choices between permanent hire and seasonal hiring.
The farmer’s other assets, other than land, constitute his capital (not an accounting definition).
We should count funding opportunities and the abundant extension services as part of our capital.
Mombe, mapadza, tractors and harrows, or even game, in the case of those into game farming.
It is essential to plan and mobilise resources for what one plans to engage in, including unforeseen eventualities.
The farmer, who is the entrepreneur, is the most critical variable in any farming venture for it is his ingenuity which will either make or break the venture.
He must have an eye for sustainability and profitability for his undertaking.
Passion is an important ingredient for successful farming as livestock, game and crops are living organisms which need both love and commitment to prosper and propagate.
With the proliferation of GMOs, organically produced food stuffs provide an excellent opportunity for export to the international market, which is becoming very health-conscious and largely opting for healthy foods.
We have the advantage of having both the land and a good climate, which can enable year-round farming, especially with the harnessing of our potential water reservoirs.
Irrigation will play a vital role to this end and requires futuristic investment drives/sacrifices.
Maybe, the term vocation could underscore the potential that lies in agriculture for Zimbabwe.
Farming should be viewed as a business and if we get our mathematics right, even the ordinary kumusha land holdings, put to good use, are potential cash cows.
Kumusha should be turned from a cost-centre to an income-head to all enterprising nationals.
Like I asked in last week’s installment: What is it that is in your hand?
That should be your bazooka in this war against poverty.