Command Agric is the future

AFEW months ago, an antiland reform colleague of mine sent me an email attachment of a 1975 United Nations report on the state of food productivity in various parts of the world. The highlighted section of the report spoke of Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) and its agricultural output at the time.

It stated that in 1975, Rhodesia had the second highest yields per hectare in the world in terms of maize, wheat, soya beans and groundnuts, and the third highest yields per hectare in the world for cotton.

For the combined ranking for all these crops, Rhodesia ranked first in the world.

Presumably, my colleague was trying to highlight that prior to Zimbabwe’s land reform exercise; the country was a breadbasket and a net-exporter of food. This is true. I responded to him by pinpointing three pieces of pre-colonial legislation — the Land Apportionment Act of 1930, the Native Land Husbandry Act of 1951 and the Tribal Trust Lands Act of 1965.

In a nutshell, these laws collectively called for the confiscation of land and livestock belonging to indigenous Zimbabweans. Furthermore, indigenous Zimbabwean communities were relocated and forced to live in barely fertile and crowded Tribal Trust Lands.

These historical heists were corrected around 2000 through the Land Reform Programme. Nevertheless, a conspicuous lack of agricultural productivity in the country since that year, due to droughts and other factors, has given ammunition to land reform critics, who at every turn seek to dismiss the programme as an outright failure.

It is for this reason that the Command Agriculture policy is both timely and strategic.

Command Agriculture is a Government initiative that aims to increase national maize production to two million tonnes per annum. Through the programme, the 2016/17 agricultural season should see maize planted on 400 000 hectares of arable land with Government support.

Some 20 000 hectares should either be fully or partially irrigated.

Furthermore, the Command Agriculture initiative has seen Government source US$500 million worth of inputs in the form of maize seed, lime, basal and top-dressing fertilisers, herbicides and diesel.

Government has also hired out close to 1 000 tractors across Zimbabwe.

Prior to the programme, 1 300 training centres were established across the country. In addition, 3 000 agricultural extension workers and 91 000 farmers were prepared on the programme and its desired outcomes before the season commenced.

At this point, we are halfway through the 2016/17 agricultural season, and the Command Agriculture initiative is showing potential.

In Mashonaland East, for instance, I have seen more cultivation of land this year than I have seen for over a decade.

It is undeniable that the prevailing cash crunch would have caused many commercial farmers to forgo the season without planting due to lack of resources to purchase farming inputs.

In this light, Government’s intervention through Command Agriculture is commendable.

It is also worth mentioning that local manufacturers and distributors of Command Agriculture-related inputs such as fertilisers and seed are secondary beneficiaries of the policy.

Put plainly, the US$500 million sourced by Government for the programme has been channelled to local processors and distributors of inputs. That is certainly a notable cash injection into local industry.

Traditionally, smallholder farmers have borne the brunt of maize production in the country. While the Presidential Well-Wishers Agricultural Inputs Scheme provides inputs for communal smallholder farmers, it is also true that smallholder farmers produce maize mainly for subsistence and, therefore, their yearly yields are inadequate to meet national demand.

Of course, the scheme’s objective is to ensure household food security, and the initiative also contributed to improved yield in 2013/14.

However, in the broader context, Command Agriculture serves as a useful incentive for commercial farmers to be productive.

Having said that, there is one reservation I have with respect to the initiative, and this has to do with yields.

According to research, at best farmers in neighbouring Zambia and South Africa can achieve approximately 20-30 tonnes of maize per hectare, while, at best, Zimbabwean farmers achieve approximately 13 tonnes of maize per hectare.

These statistics apply to commercial producers who irrigate their crops.

The Zambian national average yield of producers without irrigation is around 2,5 tonnes per hectare, while statistics for Zimbabwe released in 2015 indicate that the national average yield is around one tonne per hectare.

One reason for this statistical disparity could be that South Africa and Zambia generally have more expansive and fertile farming regions.

Another reason could be that farmers in those countries have access to funding and, consequently, considerable farming technology. In addition, Zimbabwe’s calculation of national yield per hectare combines the output of communal farmers with the output of commercial farmers.

However, since Command Agriculture is aimed solely at commercial farmers and does not include communal farmers, the policy’s targeted yield of five tonnes per hectare could be on the low side. The rains have been favourable, and the crop is looking promising in many areas.

The country should achieve a bumper harvest this year.

Ultimately, the Command Agricultural initiative is a sound policy framework, and its architects must be commended. Tau Tawengwa is a doctoral candidate and farmer

HOWDY folks! If you walk into any office in Zimbabwe today, you are likely to be greeted by a desk with three big trays full of documents.

One is marked “Incoming”, another “Pending”, and the third “Outgoing”.

Behind that desk sits the boss in a swivel chair, feeling that as long as those trays are filled with paper, he/she is working hard.

The number of documents you pile in those three trays seemingly shows your relevance to the organisation.

Some people have a tendency of wanting to be seen to be very busy — albeit busy doing nothing in most cases. When you walk into their offices, they will pick a stale document from one of those three trays and start underlining a few lines. It will go on and on until the door is shut in your face.

Is the paper still relevant in the office set-up or it should be relegated to other places such as toilets? (There are now also paperless toilets elsewhere in the developed world.)

In many cases, in the work environment, before we print an email, there is a polite message that reads, “Please consider the environment before printing.”

But how many actually consider that before hitting the famous “print” button?

The idea is apparently to avoid wastages on not only paper, but toner as well, while doing justice to the environment.

It is estimated that 50 percent of the pages we print are never looked at.

The office can, therefore, take a whole different look if employees were to reduce the usage of paper for tasks that can simply be done on the computer to achieve similar results.

The typical paper-based filing systems that we normally find in most offices no longer match with the developments in technology that we now have.

And that mismatch translates into savings opportunities that should be tapped into.

The African Union is already running paperless meetings, including summits.

And the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa took a similar approach last year when it hosted its first paperless Summit in Madagascar.

African leaders have already shown that it can be done.

The savings that come with going paperless can also be demonstrated by Comesa’s paper requirements before going paperless.

For every Comesa policy organ meeting, they would use 1 000 reams of paper, weighing 2,500 kg, which require 60 full-grown trees to make.

This means about US$5 000 was being spent on paper only.

Additional costs would also come from storage and transportation.

In a Facebook response to Financial Express, Comesa said there are no plans yet to roll out a policy on common guidelines on paperless offices for member states, but added that “member states of Comesa are free to follow our lead”.

About a fortnight ago, the Zimbabwe Government sent a delegation to the Comesa secretariat to benchmark the set-up and operation of the Comesa system, which was used at last year’s Summit in Madagascar.

The spotlight is now on Zimbabwe to see the extent to which the country can take up paperless solutions. Over-reliance on paper has already shown how it tends to contribute immensely to deforestation and man-made climate change.

Organisations that are seriously concerned about climate change should, therefore, demonstrate that through how they consume paper.

Organisations like the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority have already made headway by introducing online application platforms for obtaining documents such as business partner numbers and tax clearance certificates; filing VAT, PAYE, income tax, presumptive tax and other returns.

There is still a huge opportunity for many companies to make savings from costs associated with filing.

The usual procedure after receiving an email with important attachments is to print the documents and then file them in physical form.

This eats up a lot of office space that could be utilised for other productive work.

Businesses can, therefore, make huge savings by creating virtual libraries where all the important documents that are downloaded can be saved and accessed through computers.

Even those documents that were received physically a long time ago before the organisation computerised, and are just occupying office space, can still be scanned and properly archived in a computer system.

When you want to retrieve a file from a huge physical filing cabinet, it might take you forever to find the correct one.

The document might have been misplaced and you may be distracted from your actual work as you hunt for it to no avail.

But when the document is archived in a virtual system, it can be accessed quickly and easily.

Further, many users can access that one document at the same time without even having to move an inch. It will all be happening at the click of a button.

Although you may have to part with some money to acquire the necessary equipment to establish a paperless work environment, the conveniences it brings can justify the necessity.

While completely eliminating paper may not be practical in the work environment, there is scope for many organisations to interrogate their paper usage and find ways of reducing it to a minimum.

Firms in sectors such as accounting and law might need more time to catch up, but it is important for the way we do business to continue to be inspired by modern trends in technology.

The wise words of Comesa Secretary-General Mr Sindiso Ngwenya while launching the paperless system at an inter-governmental committee meeting are worth repeating.

Said Mr Ngwenya, “Indeed, there are some of us who will feel threatened or uncomfortable with the technology. That is to be expected as disruptive technology when introduced has its birth pangs. What is, however, certain as in the case of any virtual application and systems is that once we get used to the systems they become our second nature.”

Later folks!

It is also worth mentioning that local manufacturers and distributors of Command Agriculture-related inputs such as fertilisers and seed are secondary beneficiaries of the policy.