By Dr Tafataona Mahoso

THE much talked about bumper crop resulting from the Command Agriculture Programme would not have been possible without an unusually prolonged rainy season during which rainfall was above normal.
This truth must lead to the insight that adequate provision of water for irrigation to resettled farmers can lead to sustainable and sustained bumper harvests every year from now on.
This insight leads further to yet another unstated truth: The African land reclamation movement, revolution in land tenure and resettlement was in fact a silent struggle for access to water and it would have been more successful in terms of end-results if it had been made clear from the start that this was in fact a struggle to reclaim and redeem African water sources and resources commandeered by white settlers.
What I mean is, the peasants moving from Marange, Buhera, Chivi, Nyamandhlovu or Svosve to prime farm-land areas were in fact moving from areas receiving inadequate rain and or lacking water for irrigation; and moving to areas receiving higher amounts of rainfall and/or possessing irrigation water sources and irrigation infrastructure.
Land as such was available everywhere, but adequate rainfall and irrigation water and infrastructure were not.
Colonial investment in water development was deliberately skewed to serve a white settler-minority.
Africans were allowed access to limited water for subsistence only.
Therefore Madzimbahwe would have gained better strategic clarity if the land revolution had been properly called the revolution for access to water and good rainfall.
In fact, with adequate water, even infertile land can gradually gain in fertility through mulching, composting and the production of manure from livestock.
As I began to show in previous instalments, it is an understatement to say the water sector as a whole was the least supportive of the land revolution and it remains the least supportive of the Command Agriculture Programme today.
In Mutasa South where I have had some experience, the water sector was hostile to the land revolution and it is probably still hostile to Command Agriculture today, judging by the absence of the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA), the Save Catchment Council and the Odzi Sub-catchment Council from crucial meetings seeking to advance Command Agriculture beyond one rainy season.
The end of the 2016-2017 rain season should have seen all agencies and councils in the water sector come to the forefront of the Command Agriculture Programme to articulate and implement a clear strategy and practical plans for supporting the scheme through innovative, pro-active and efficient provision of irrigation water and water infrastructure.
This is not the case as we go to press and ordinary resettled farmers must demand to know why.
The case of the Odzani River Canal and the Odzi Sub-catchment Council
As already pointed out, if Madzimbahwe had thought more about water and rainfall and less about just ‘land’ – the offer letters issued to resettled farmers would have clearly stated the conditions under which the new farmers were to access water and there would have been meticulous co-ordination of the resettlement process involving the Ministry of Lands and Resettlement, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate, ZINWA, Environmental Management Agency (EMA) and Catchment and Sub-catchment Councils – to ensure that, for instance, all the people allocated land adjacent to the Odzani River Canal understood water regulations and adhered to them; to ensure that the number of resettled farmers conformed with the carrying capacity of the canal; and to ensure that the canal itself was treated and maintained as one intact asset serving a carefully controlled and well organised population of resettled farmers.
What happened is quite shocking to narrate.
The white farmers sitting on stolen land to be issued to new resettled farmers were allowed to linger on that land beyond the regulated time and they had opportunity to influence the policy and practices of water allocation to the extent that as late as December 2015 both ZINWA and the Odzi Sub-catchment Council pretended that the Odzani River Canal was being efficiently and legally operated in terms of Rhodesian by-laws dated June 1961!
The reality on the ground was quite the contrary.
Even on resettled farms that already had water permits, it took in many cases as long as two years for the new farmers’ water rights to be clarified.
If the farmer did not fight for water, none of the agencies would do anything to facilitate the process or to educate new farmers about water regulations and water access.
Worse still, a situation was allowed to evolve where only farmers from the upstream sections of the canal were represented on the Odzi Sub-catchment Council.
This process sectionalised access to the canal water, causing dams at the lower end of the system to dry up.
Council allowed open, flagrant discrimination against newly resettled farmers at the lower end of the canal.
Worse still, some of the settlers at the drying lower end of the canal were allowed to move upstream and to sub-let plots from those upstream farmers who still had water!
This is one of the most retrogressive developments, similar to the habit in some cities after independence of abusing children by force-shipping them 20-30km from so-called high-density area schools to so-called Group ‘A’ schools!
The rationale was that children would get a superior education through such daily migrations!
But the children spent the bulk of their time worrying about catching accident-prone kombis to ride for over 50km back and forth daily!
The excuse given by ZINWA and the Odzi Sub-catchment Council is that there is not enough water.
But that is not true.
The key problem is poor policy planning and gross mal-administration.
If the problem were just the prolonged drought or diminishing water flows, farmers would have seen ZINWA and the Sub-catchment Council develop and implement a clear water rationing system.
There is no such plan despite recent droughts.
And there is no time-framed plan to phase out flood irrigation and introduce pumps, dams and pipes!
The way forward seems clear.
l Access to land should be directly linked to access to irrigation water and water infrastructure.
l Those with no offer letters for land should not be allowed to access irrigation water.
l Canal systems such as the Odzani River Canal should be revamped, lined or piped and maintained as single, intact systems and should never be sectionalised.
l Flood irrigation should be phased out as quickly as possible and farmers should access loans to acquire pumps and build dams where they do not exist or dredge and rehabilitate silted ones.
l There ought to be meticulous co-ordination among all the authorities whose policies affect access to water and water use. These include the Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate; Ministry of Agriculture and Mechanisation, ZINWA, the Catchment Councils; Local Government authorities and so on.
l There should be a renewed awareness campaign throughout the country to bring home the message that the land revolution has always been about access to good rainfall areas or good irrigation areas. Land is everywhere but good rains and good dams, canals and boreholes are limited and need to be increased exponentially if the land revolution is to yield its well-deserved results.