Droughts are not all bad news for farming in Zimbabwe. Tobacco, for example, yields very well when stressed a bit. In fact tobacco farmers have a lot of problems when the rains are good; the crop grows too quickly and the leaf is difficult to cure. So this season some very qood quality and excellent yields are expected from those few farmers left who have the skills. Of course where there is feast the scavengers gather too. On Christmas Day a white farmer in the Rusape area (east of Harare) was kicked off his farm just as he was about to start reaping his first planting of tobacco. He won’t be the last. I suspect some will probably do ALL the work and then lose the cured crop. Especially as prices were excellent last season and expected to be even higher this year!
“So what are your qualifications” I asked the young teller taking the cash for my electricity account that I have not received in over a year but must still pay anyway. “Three A levels” she replied.
“And how much are you paid?”
“One hundred dollars” and though she didn’t mention it I knew it was monthly.
I told her that my senior foreman went home with over $200 with overtime. Domestic servants are paid around $90 often with accomodation thrown in and my labourers earn $60 or more with overtime. Some have only a few years of education and cannot read or write. It is perhaps not surprising that the civil service is threatening a strike.
Meanwhile Harare’s mayor has budgeted for a new mayoral Benz for his use and a twin cab pickup for his wife (who is not an elected official). The drought is now starting to bite and no doubt the begging bowl will come out while the diamond fields in Marange continue to be plundered and new ways of taxing us are conjoured up.
In my army days RHIP stood for Rank Has Its Privileges and meant that officers didn’t do guard duties and if there was dirty work to do the lowest of the low (troopers – us) got to do it.
It seems that RHIP still exists in Zimbabwe today and can be seen in many guises and in the smart cars that ministers and others of rank get to drive. If you are really somebody of note you might even get a permanent armed guard on your home gate. It is almost entirely showing off; I have never heard on an attempt on anyone important at their house.
This afternoon I drove past a smart house in Mount Pleasant with an armed guard outside the gate. He was diligently writing something down in a notebook whilst sitting in the grass on his rifle.
Jeremy is an ex-commercial farmer who works for a German NGO. Rather late last year he asked me if we could grow gum trees, some for him and a much larger amount for the NGO to give out to be grown near dip tanks in the rural areas to take the pressure off the indigenous trees being cut for fuel. It was late to plant trees but I did not mind; it was a nice order and we needed the work. Jeremy was very pleased with the seedlings when he came to start organizing their collection and distribution. I got chatting to him about the rest of his work. They (the NGO) give out treadle pumps and they can be used to irrigate up to a hectare of crops. Jeremy was enthusiastic on how well it was all going and was keen for us to start supplying vegetable seedlings for the NGO to distribute as giving out seed was a bit hit and miss as to whether the crops got growing. He was talking big figures and I started to be quite hopeful. The glass was definitely half full.
I have met Bill before and like Jeremy he too is an ex-commercial farmer and also works for the same NGO. He came to organize the collection of gum trees to go to the Makoni area which is in the central east of the country. I asked him how it was all going. Dismally apparently. He said that no-one was really interested in watering the trees through the dry season (and we are already having a dry wet season) so most would likely die as had the numerous trees that had gone before them. What was more the kopjes (stony hills) in the area were being devastated by the tobacco farmers cutting trees to use as fuel to cure their tobacco. He couldn’t wait for September when his contract finished. For him the glass was half empty and the level falling fast! I decided not to put too much hope in Jeremy’s entusiasm.
Jeremy is an ex-commercial farmer who works for a German NGO. Rather late last year he asked me if we could grow gum trees, some for him and a much larger amount for the NGO to give out to be grown near dip tanks in the rural areas to take the pressure off the indigenous trees being cut for fuel. It was late to plant trees but I did not mind; it was a nice order and we needed the work. Jeremy was very pleased with the seedlings when he came to start organizing their collection and distribution. I got chatting to him about the rest of his work. They (the NGO) give out treadle pumps and they can be used to irrigate up to a hectare of crops. Jeremy was enthusiastic on how well it was all going and was keen for us to start supplying vegetable seedlings for the NGO to distribute as giving out seed was a bit hit and miss as to whether the crops got growing. He was talking big figures and I started to be quite hopeful. The glass was definitely half full.
I have met Bill before and like Jeremy he too is an ex-commercial farmer and also works for the same NGO. He came to organize the collection of gum trees to go to the Makoni area which is in the central east of the country. I asked him how it was all going. Dismally apparently. He said that no-one was really interested in watering the trees through the dry season (and we are already having a dry wet season) so most would likely die as had the numerous trees that had gone before them. What was more the kopjes (stony hills) in the area were being devastated by the tobacco farmers cutting trees to use as fuel to cure their tobacco. He couldn’t wait for September when his contract finished. For him the glass was half empty and the level falling fast! I decided not to put too much hope in Jeremy’s entusiasm.
They are everywhere these days – the water carriers. I was driving behind a 10 tonner this afternoon, water sloshing out of the 3000 litre tanks on the back. A lot of them like this one are not even proper tankers; they just have plastic tanks tied down on the back of the truck. Some of them pay the price too and on more than one occasion I have seen broken tanks and even an overturned trailer.
Water selling has been lucrative for some time now since the water treatment plant at Lake Chivero, Harare’s water supply, fell into disrepair. I know people who have not had municipal water supplied for in excess of two years now. It follows that borehole drilling and pump supplies have also been good business (as has borehole pump theft). For those who can afford a hole drilled and get good water (not a given) this has not been too much of a problem, until now. The promised el Nino drought is starting to make its presence felt and I know of several friends whose boreholes are starting to run dry. Which is good news for the water sellers.
I don’t know what the hygiene requirements are for supplying water; whether it has to be potable or not. There is one setup just down the road from my business and rather close to a municipal rubbish tip that is hiding in a premises that is ostenisbly selling used tires. A friend tried to buy some tires there a few days ago and just got blank stares. I have seen the tanker filling up inside on several occasions – used tyres? No, water!
The actual figures of Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation in 2008 will be the subject of papers and theses for years to come. A few weeks ago I did come across a locally produced estimate in a banking promotion given out with one of the independant newspapers.
The CPI (consumer price index) in October 2008 rose by some 46,134,120% implying an annual rate of 64,070,807,881,462,900%
Just thought I should mention it!
Hi Bridget,
Yes, there is no denying that Zim is a lot better off than a year ago. Everything is available albeit at a high price (especially electonics!). The basic food stuffs are reasonably priced and some things like beer (essentials!) are the same price as in SA. I would say that some 90% or more of what I see on supermarket shelves is imported. I even saw imported tomatoes the other day which in my opinion is scandalous! If you stuck to the touristy things you would not know that there was much wrong because they are not dependent on local inputs, just you the tourist bringing money in. As farming inputs go I can get whatever I need and prices have come down with competition though a lot of our chemicals seem to come out of China along with a few worries about what is actually in them. I was out at the TRB (Tobacco Research Board) the other day and they did mention that they’d had a lot of reports of phytotoxicity on seed beds this season though that might also have been due to imcompetence.
We are still as a nation not producing much though with the gold price being what it is that aspect does seem to be coming along. The flower exporters (who hadn’t been kicked off) took a massive knock whith the world-wide economic crisis of course. This year is also a full blown el Niño so rains have been very patchy and some areas are getting hammered. My senior foreman came back from leave in Manicaland last week and said that if they did not get good rain by this week their crops would be a write-off. I have heard from a friend whose son farms in the Chimoio area that they are equally bad. So no doubt the begging bowl will come out again!
Farmers getting kicked off the land is no longer the front page news that it was though I have heard via the grape vine that it is still happening. Maybe it’s because there are so few left that the rate has slacked off a bit! I do hear of people wanting to come back and I believe there is a drift in this direction. I’m not sure what they think they will actually do. I don’t see a lot happening until there is some sort of rule-of-law and of course that is definitely not going to happen as long as the incumbent is still there and he shows no sign of leaving. Loans are very hard to come by and conditions for collateral are ridiculous. I survive because I am a cash farmer but things are very tight right now – I have only 3 large commercial scale farmers left on my books.
The health services have improved a lot but are expensive relative to SA and if you don’t have medical aid you WILL have a problem at some stage! I suppose I should say that the private health services have improved massively but I was impressed with the Pari (large government run hospital in Harare) when I went there for some tests a while ago (that means it was functioning and clean and not the train smash that it was last year!)
Education is fine if you can afford the private schools – Peterhouse girls all in is now $3000 per term. A friend says that is more expensive than Rhodes University! Government schools are functioning which is certainly and improvement but as to the standards I cannot comment.
So yes we are in for another tough year.
Ciao,
Andy.
OK, so I find beetles fascinating. This dude has some impressive armour and mandibles. I put it in a Ziploc bag last night and it chewed its way out in about 5 minutes so it had to overnight in the fridge. It woke up in about 10 minutes today so I had to be quick.
Giant Longhorn beetle - Tithoes confinis
