HUGE praises on the big success of the Command Agriculture Programme introduced by Government are in order.
The maize crop was the major beneficiary of this command system. Three million tonnes of the crop, the highest in more than 50 years, is expected to be harvested this year.
Right now, the command system is being introduced vigorously and successfully in gold mining and other areas.
In this article, we would like to show opposition parties and their newspapers, who have given the wrong impression that the command system was copied from other countries like Russia, that in fact they are wrong.
The command system is inherited from our great ancestors, the Mutapa kings of old who ran one of the most successful and most prosperous empires in the world lasting over 400 years, premised on a command economy.
To achieve this, we are going to use the examples of the command system in agriculture and trade.
Let us briefly look at the command system itself.
Here is how it works.
Government assists its citizens by advancing those citizens with money, equipment and trade goods.
At the end of the production or trading cycle, the citizens are then expected to pay back the amounts that were advanced to them while they (citizens) appropriate the surpluses.
This is what has happened with the successful command system in maize.
Farmers were advanced maize seed and diesel, among other inputs, and now with the bumper harvest resulting from this, the farmers are simply going to pay back a few tonnes of maize to Government while they appropriate the rest of the maize.
This is a very beautiful way to empower citizens and grow the country’s economy.
The command system came down to us from the Mutapa emperors who successfully used it to empower their citizens and grow their economy.
One of the areas in which they used it profitably was in cattle production and trade.
Stan I.G. Mudenge helps us with our story.
We start with cattle.
There were lots of cattle in the Mutapa Empire; n’ombe aiva mavhu nemarara.
“Cattle were important and the Mutapa had considerable numbers,” writes Mudenge.
How did the Mutapas ensure there were large herds of cattle in the empire?
They had a command system in place called kuronzera in Shona.
“This is a system under which one person keeps another person’s cattle.
The person to whom the cattle are ronzerwad had the right to use them and cream off the surplus such as mhuru, calves.”
In the Mutapa Empire, this was very prevalent.
“Before the 18th Century, the Mutapa herds were such that they had to be kept by provincial barons even as far away from the capital as 150km.
The most famous and documented example of this was Dombo, founder of the Rozvi Empire.
In the 15th Century, Changamire Togwa is said to have sent (back) 4 000 hornless cattle to Mutapa Mukombero (which had been ronzerwad to him.”
Due to the kuronzera system, people in the Mutapa State were empowered by cattle from the Mutapa herds, starting with the provincial barons all the way down to misha, villages.
From the surplus cattle ronzerwad to them by the Mutapa King, people were able to have their own cattle which formed their wealth.
The larger the number of cattle one had, the richer one was.
The command system of kuronzera ensured that almost everyone had cattle, which meant people were generally well off in the Mutapa Empire because of the many cattle in it.
All throughout the Mutapa Empire, there were thousands and thousands of cattle on the veld, an indication that people in that society were very rich.
In Zimbabwe today, the rural areas have the largest number of cattle and almost every household has cattle.
This development is a legacy from the Mutapa command system of kuronzera which has ensured that Zimbabwe is cattle country today.
Another area where the Mutapa kings ran a command system was the area of trade with the outside world.
First the Mutapa kings empowered their people by setting up trade centres called feiras and in return they got their money back through duties and taxes.
“In the 16th and the early 17th centuries, the feira market of Masapa was the most important of these while later the feira of Dambarare (present Harare) became the key centre.
In the north and north-east of present Zimbabwe, there was a complex of these feiras.
Among these were the feiras of Manzovo (Mazowe) Ruhanje Bukutu, Masapa, Chipiririri, Matafuna and the Zimbabwes of the Mutapas. In central and north-west Zimbabwe was found another complex which grew in importance as the 17th Century progressed.
Manyika had the longest surviving feira in Zimbabwe, spanning the whole Portuguese period from 16th to 17th centuries.
The other feiras included the feiras of Mutuka, Vumba, Masekesa, Arungwa, Mutare and Maungwe. Before the 18th Century, it was to these feiras Portuguese traders or their caravans of vashambadzi came with clothes, beads and other trade items to barter with the local people.”
The feiras were a product of the command system introduced to promote trade by the Mutapas.
These feiras were set up at the expense of the Mutapa kings to enable the people to trade their various products and in the process developed the local economies to great heights.
The Mutapas were rewarded for investing in command trade through duties.
They had an officer at every feira.
“The most important role of that officer as far as the Mutapas were concerned was that he acted as an officer of the Mutapa King to receive all the duties paid to him by the merchants both Christian and Moors.
Throughout the history of the Mutapa state, tolls/tariffs were always imposed and collected from foreign traders.”
During the Mutapa era there was a vibrant external trade supported by the command system.
The above command system in cattle trade and other areas ensured that the economy that supported the Mutapa Empire was strong and pretty robust, which ensured the empire lasted for very long.
The command system is a very good system which was handed down to us by our forefathers and we must be very proud of it.
If we use this system wisely in all areas of our economy, the way we used it in the maize sector this year, Zimbabwe’s economy is going to shoot to great heights.
The reason our growth rate has suddenly shot up is because of our use of the command system this year.
People against the command system are those who enjoy seeing Africans begging for food from imperialists who, by the way, use the command system but will never admit it.