For South African farmers, the plight of their Zimbabwean counterparts is a horror story they hope won’t repeat itself here. On a recent trip to Zimbabwe, Sharon Gottard found farmers who not only have managed to survive the political turmoil, but amazingly, have managed to remain positive about their prospects.
Is there anyone still left farming in Zimbabwe? It’s a question that’s often asked, and one to which I found an answer in a small town north of Harare, one wouldn’t think much of at first glance. As with many other small towns in the country, the roads are disintegrating, but the streets remain full of surprisingly cheerful people given the circumstances in their country. And despite the government’s forced resettlement programme, it’s clear some commercial agriculture has managed survive, despite Robert Mugabe’s best efforts to destroy it.
History of a farmer
Alan Jones*, a 35-year-old farmer, was working the family farm when politics rudely intervened in 2002. Soon he found himself farming only 8% of the original farm. To survive, Alan and his wife Clare* started their own company, growing tobacco, seed maize and paprika, which remained a viable means of supporting their family. They felt strongly about staying in Zimbabwe, specifically on their farm. Although the government gave them permission to stay, the local war veterans (commonly termed war vets) and some disgruntled ex-farmworkers pulled out every stop to get them off the farm. With a far-off look on his face, Alan remembers what it was like. “We were repeatedly harassed, locked up in our farm yard and occasionally in our house. Often the farm was forced to stop working. On one occasion I was physically abducted by an angry mob and taken to the bush, but fortunately later released unharmed.”
Alan’s remaining farmworkers repeatedly stood up for him and on some occasions chased the war vets away so the farm could keep running. Amazingly the police responded over 30 times to free the family and calm the situation. After two long, tense and politically charged years, the government finally decided they were no longer allowed to stay on the farm, which had been in the family for nearly 40 years.
Alan and his young family left in 2004, taking with them all movable assets and a large number of their farmworkers and their families who wanted to continue working with them. For the next three years Alan leased 40ha of land from a commercial farmer who was unaffected by the land grabs. In September 2007 this changed when the government finally decided to take that farm too. Alan, his pregnant wife and three children, packed up their home, all their farm equipment and inputs and moved to the above-mentioned town.
With demand for houses at a premium, the family lived on a friend’s property in a one-bedroomed cottage for almost two months before finding a house to rent. Despite the often stressful times, they were surrounded by support from all sides and came through with a smile. fter some negotiation, Alan was told in October 2007 that he could continue farming and finish the tobacco season he’d already started on the land he’d been leasing. I asked him how this works. Does he pay rent to the new owners? Does he have any guarantee he’ll be allowed to reap his tobacco at the end of the season?
“I’m not officially leasing but I’ve agreed to do a bit of cropping for the new owners, with the consent of the previous owner,” he explains. This agreement is clearly a win-win situation. Life is slightly easier for Clare now that she’s based in town and not on the farm, but Alan admits he does take some strain. “The farm is 25km from town on very badly potholed tar roads. It takes me about 30 minutes to get there. I don’t have access to the farmhouse which means no toilets and no running water. It’s taken some getting used to! In addition there are limited storage facilities available on the farm and questionable security, so I collect all my chemicals, fertiliser and diesel from a rented warehouse each morning.”
Cash crisis
I’m surprised to see three fairly new vehicles parked outside, and Alan assures me that with good decision-making it’s possible to farm successfully in Zimbabwe. “All my inputs are supplied by a tobacco contractor, the company that buys my crop,” explains Alan. “The inputs are set in US dollar, so the interest rates are in line with international ones, and taken off the income from the tobacco sales at the end of the season. We also get a US dollar loan for capital expenditure.” On the other hand, Alan says the commercial banks access local finance from the Reserve Bank on their behalf at 50% interest. The level of inflation makes this money very cheap by the time they have to pay it back.
There’s also limited longer-term finance for purchasing equipment. Alan says that without a doubt this finance scheme is critical to the survival of farming in Zimbabwe today. The biggest daily challenge facing Alan and Clare, both professionally and personally, is that it’s almost impossible to budget with inflation sitting at an estimated 10 000% per annum. In South Africa this would mean that, if on 1 January milk in a supermarket sold for R10/2ℓ, on 1 February one would pay R21,50 and 1 March R46,50. By 1 April, just four months later, one would pay R100/2ℓ of milk. Alan therefore appreciates that as soon as money comes in, it must be spent. Wealth must be created by buying farming inputs, vehicles, houses and so on, before the currency loses value. That would explain the value of the vehicles. As is to be expected with hyper inflation, cash has become a sought-after commodity.
Alan says that paying December wages and bonuses to his farmworkers was a nightmare. “The normal procedure is to order the money from the bank 24 hours before drawing it. “When we did this in mid-December, the bank told us we had little chance of getting our cash to pay wages as they still had a backlog of customers who had been waiting since November. “At the time the new ZIM0 000 bank note had just been issued, which was fairly pointless when bread cost ZIM million, and the bank queues were unbelievable. To try to keep up, banks stayed open until 6pm every night and all day Saturday and Sunday.
Christmas Day was fast approaching, so I eventually went to the bank and queued from 6am. It was a miracle but we got our full allocation of cash to pay our labourers’ wages.” Cash for personal use was also a problem with the daily limit from an ATM only covering the cost of 10 loaves of bread. During this cash crisis consumers were offered a 30% to 50% discount if they paid cash and were charged 10% extra if they paid with a cheque (highly illegal practices, of course).
‘We believe things will come right’
While the cash crisis has since passed, I struggle to understand why this couple choose to live this life when it’s clear they have the means to leave Zimbabwe and farm successfully elsewhere – particularly in South Africa. Alan says they’re still there because they strongly believe things will come right, “and we’ll keep making a plan in the meantime!” Furthermore, it’s in times of adversity that the kindness of human nature tends to shine brightly, says Clare. Community spirit is alive and well. When she finds toothpaste on the supermarket shelves she’ll buy 20 tubes at a time and then swap with friends or neighbours who need toothpaste while she needs flour. Bartering is commonplace, as is hoarding – whether it’s food, fuel or fertiliser.
Alan and Clare believe the school system is still good, and schools manage the payment of fees and run themselves as best they can. However, Alan and Clare tell me not to underestimate the hardships of daily life. “A normal day can often mean load-shedding from 8am to 10pm. Municipal water is unavailable on most days. Luckily we have a borehole and a generator, but both use diesel, a precious commodity.
We’re used to not having fresh fruit, and a braai with steak and boerewors is a treat due to their unavailability and exorbitant price.” It helps that one of their friends is a butcher. However, they remain positive about the country and believe things will turn around. “Even if things don’t come right in the long term, right now we still have a good quality of life here,” says Clare. “We measure it by the fact that we have a close-knit community, crime is very low, family values are high, our kids are day scholars at a private school and we have the time and energy to spend supporting them.” Their stress levels seem remarkably low.
I wonder out loud if there are many farmers like them farming under these conditions. “There are more than meets the eye,” concedes Alan. “Some are leasing land from new farmers, others are in partnerships. Contract farming for corporate companies is also catching on, where commercial farmers source tracts of land and farm it with the corporate’s financial support.”
Keeping the faith
Alan and Clare believe in Zimbabwe and what it offers them in terms of lifestyle and opportunities. They adapt to the continual changes that farming throws at them with a positive “can-do” attitude and maintain that “what doesn’t kill, strengthens”. In their words: “hardships are never wasted but build character and relationships.” I leave feeling that if one can be positive about farming in Zimbabwe, maybe we in South Africa can be more positive about the challenges and opportunities we face, both in farming and in life in general.
*Names have been changed
