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Obert Chifamba
Command Agriculture must answer all aspects of the national food requirements. It must signpost the future of Zimbabwe as the regional food basket and most importantly, talk to the country’s food needs in their broad totality.
It must respond to the grain or cereal, relish, draught power and financial needs of the generality of Zimbabweans.
This noble programme must be different from other such programmes that the nation undertook at some point with the sole hope of boosting food as well as national security.
There was Mushandirapamwe in the early eighties, the Zunde raMambo concept and Operation Maguta to name just a few, which were adopted, rolled out and allowed to die natural deaths.
Command Agriculture must not be a once-off thing that dies before it is explored to fullness. There may be technical glitches in the implementation but that should not sound the death knell for the programme.
If we perceive it to be a failure, then as a nation we must not rush to abandon it but give some years of fine-tuning.
As a nation we need to focus on improving our shortcomings that were exposed in earlier programmes and avoid the same pitfalls this time around.
Everyone, Government and all people must play ball. The programme must not be seen to be benefiting Government officials or those with good connections in high offices but must leave the farmers’ socio-economic realities enhanced.
In the same vein of thought, the programme must take into cognisance other critical factors such as “money is in tobacco” that have seen many farmers abandoning food crops for the golden leaf.
There should be a pull-factor to prod farmers into leaving tobacco for maize-leaving a highly rewarding cash crop for a food crop whose value and payment structures have always been the biggest undoing for farmers.
Farmers do not even need to abandon cash crops like tobacco but try to strike a balance because the nation needs both crops.
What they just need is to see competitive prices for everything that they produce and that is enough to see them sticking to the crops.
This makes it critical to demystify the Grain Marketing Board (GMB’s) current reputation as the last buyer of choice owing to its failure to pay farmers in time.
If a farmer grows and sells tobacco, she gets her money on the same day or latest a day later in most cases but with GMB payments take months and in some cases years so for Command Agriculture to be sustainable, GMB too must play a critical role in perception management and real monetary value to the farmer.
Additionally, pricing regimes for both inputs and produce should be competitive so that farmers see value in giving it their all under Command Agriculture.
Remember some of the farmers joining the programme are from the small-scale category and produce their crops after investing a lot of labour, usually as a family and obviously need to see the rewards after harvesting.
Command Agriculture is a good intervention that can easily succeed if farmers are equipped with weather information so that they make informed decisions on the time to start their activities.
The 2016 /17 rainfall season has since been forecasted to start at the end of this month (September) so farmers should be ready by then.
In agriculture a day lost through planting delays translates into the loss of 50kg of maize so Government must hasten to instruct Agritex extension officers that will be working with farmers to be readily available to dish out advice.
In conclusion, Command Agriculture must bring gross national happiness, it must bring gross national food security and ultimately gross national stability.
A nation that has adequate food is always stable and ultra-productive.
Online Reporter