ZANU-PF MP says it is now time to recognise that farming is a business not leisure

I think from all the contributions made, regardless of political affiliation, everyone said they want land.  Let us however bear in mind that land is a finite resource with no elasticity features.  So, when we are discussing the land redistribution programme, we should be cognisant of the fact that Zimbabwe will never expand.  The only expansion in Zimbabwe will come in the form of the population which may explode to 20 million or even 30 million people.

During this land redistribution programme, we have heard some people talking of allocating land to all the youths in this country but let me state this fact that the youths are with us until eternity as long as we still have men and women enjoying their conjugal rights.  What I am saying is that we should not allocate land based on youths because as I stated, Zimbabwe will never expand.

My advice is that we should craft new rules and regulations on the use of the available pieces of land so that future generations will benefit from the land of their forefathers.  When the land redistribution programme was launched, it was a noble idea but was done in a haphazard and haste manner, which created problems on the land use.  We now should be taking steps of correcting these problems by taking a stance that farming is a business venture and not leisure.  Farming needs careful planning and proper investment so that there is economic development at the end.

When the Land Reform Programme was launched, we had two groups of people who needed land and during that programme, land was allocated to people who wanted it.  People were not asked about their places of origin but were allocated land according to its availability hence, the development of the two groups I stated above.  On the one hand, we had retirees who wanted a villagisation model where they could embark on subsistence farming.  The other group was made up of commercial farming oriented individuals.  These two groups have different and conflicting interests.

When these people are neighbours, where the commercial farmer grows wheat, which is a winter crop, the subsistence farmer believes in letting the cattle roam at will.  The result is that the cattle will stray into the wheat field and destroy the crop and the subsistence farmer sees no problem in that but encourages the commercial farmer to fence off his field.  On the contrary, when the field has been fenced, the subsistence farmer will cut off that fence for other uses hence the conflict I mentioned and these two farmers should be separated into their respective groups.

The other anomaly which has to be corrected is communal ownership of facilities such as tobacco barns.  There are instances where 20 farmers share the same barn for curing tobacco.  This has created a lot of misunderstandings and fights amongst the farmers.  The other sign that there are conflicts of interest is the multiplicity of veld fires and this can only be corrected by allocating land to farmers with the same orientation and focus.  These fires have led to desertification at an alarming rate.

Mr. Speaker Sir, I advise the responsible Minister to encourage farmers to use alternative curing methods such as electricity or coal instead of firewood.  Commercial farmers use electricity in curing tobacco and in the process, they conserve their forests, which are then vandalized by farmers who use wood in curing tobacco and there is conflict of interest and fights over this resource.

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