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Obert Chifamba
Agri-Insight
IT will be Christmas in three days time! And Christians across the globe will once again be celebrating the life of Jesus Christ under various circumstances but one. They and non-Christians alike, are being stalked by the Covid-19 monster that is ruthlessly ravaging humanity and threatening it with extinction.
This one will be a Christmas with a difference. A Christmas on which humanity is on its edge, battling to escape from the clutches of a monster that has infected millions and killed in excess of a million globally. It will also be the first time in living memory for people to be advised against partying or getting overly excited to the point of doing things under the influence of various substances too.
The old and normal world order has been reversed and a new arrangement has been put in place.
I remember, growing up in the Mhondoro communal lands how everybody would strive to make every Christmas more memorable than the previous one. It was a day on which clothes that would have been bought from as far back as July in the course of the year would have been neatly stacked in a suitcase waiting for the big occasion.
We would wake up very early — around 5am to be precise and take the cattle to the pastures to graze.
Other family members would in some cases be either taking care of the small piece of land infested with weeds and left uncompleted the previous day or engaged in domestic chores that involved preparing meals for the big day.
By around 10am we would return to bath and have a quick breakfast before leaving for the growth point where there would be multitudes doing various things to celebrate.
In the evenings we would be sure to attend a music show and 99 percent of the time it would the late Cephas Mashakada and his Muddy Face Band. May his dear soul rest in eternal peace!
Mashakada would mesmerise the show goers with his hoarse voice while his dancers would do what they knew best till the next day.
The only similarity, which those nights might share with the impending night of 25 December 2020 may be the rains, that is, if they come anyway in line with Meteorological Services Department’s (MSD) forecast that we may be in for a wet Christmas.
In the fields, there would be a greenery that would make them the place to be for those enthusiastic about agro-tourism.
Early-planted maize would either be tasselling or just above knee-height while crops like groundnuts would flowering. This time around there is very little of this as most crops are just emerging from the soil thanks to the current rains that allowed farmers to start planting and doing most agricultural activities in earnest.
Grown-up boys would move from homestead to homestead under the guise of wishing everybody a happy Christmas and would not refuse any food offers that came their way.
This would make us (young boys then) both apprehensive and green with envy. Christmas would be a day characterised by unrestricted mingling and enjoyment but this was under the old normal.
This year’s event is being celebrated under a new normal.
It seems everything happening this year was born out of an unholy alliance between the Covid-19 pandemic and hostile climatic conditions that also chose to withhold the rains that were forecast to be coming generously this season but did not do so for the greater part of the first half (October to December) of the season until early this month.
In fact, the delayed onset of the rains explains why most fields are still devoid of green matter or are just beginning to turn green. In the wild too, there has not been much in terms of natural offerings like fruits, as most of them usually appear at the onset of the season.
Anyway, enough of the nostalgia for the good days of yesteryear!
It is time humanity looks at the world with different lenses and see how it can deal with the monster currently stalking it and come out unscathed.
For those farmers who produce perishables and products like chickens, this is normally a very busy period during which all families want to have their best meals. This means they will be running around buying all the necessary ingredients to make the day a success so there will he high human traffic to such farmers’ places.
Perishable crop produce (especially those used for side dishes) is normally in very high demand, which means farmers have to be selling them to avoid losses. This then makes it highly critical for farmers to be vigilant and avoid drifting away from observing the set Covid-19 protocols especially at a now like this when a new variant of the virus is reported to have hit the shores of neighbouring South Africa.
This essentially requires the farmers like any other citizen to make sure all Covid-19 protocols as outlined by the Government and World Health Organisation (WHO) are adhered to lest there will be a spike in the number of new cases.
Those farmers who take produce to the market must also remember that in the push to meet demand, they should not allow their vigilance to go to sleep.
There will be visitors from different places seeking the farmers’ services so they should politely remind their clients to observe all the set guidelines.
This is also a time when foot baths should be lavishly used at entry points especially for those farmers producing and selling specialised products such as chickens and pigs that happen to be on high demand during festive times like this.
Merry Christmas to all farmers, our readers and the generality of Zimbabweans. Remember to stay safe!
Online Reporter