From
my basic understanding of economics as well as my experiences in
living in both Zimbabwe and South Africa. I would say that the
average Zimbabwean and Zimbabwe as a country has a competitive
advantage when it comes to farming. Moving around in urban areas of
Zimbabwe during the rain season, when you find any vacant land
chances are someone is growing maize on that piece of land. I was
joking yesterday morning with a South African friend that here in SA
whenever one sees vacant land they quickly build a shack. A few years
ago I visited a South African friend who stayed in a house with a big
garden. I could not help but notice that he was not growing
vegetables in his garden. I have realised that whenever I come back
from my visits from Zimbabwe, my wife always ask me about the
condition of the garden at our house in Zimbabwe. We are not typical
farmers however it must be due to the environments that we were
raised in where our extended families relied on agriculture one way
or the other.
When
I was growing up we would go to the village (kumusha/ekhaya) during
school holidays and I saw first hand that farming was challenging. I
was sold this idea that farming was for less educated people. My
mother as a daughter of a farmer and also a farmer in her own right
had a garden where she would grow vegetables both at Amaveni Police
Station were we stayed from from end of 1982 to beginning of 1989 and
then at Mbizo Police Station from 1989 to 1990 she had a very big
garden where informal traders from Mbizo township would come day
after day to buy vegetables from her. In fact I got my first selling
experience when after school, I and my sister Rose would carry a dish
full of vegetables for sale at the shopping centre nearer to my
school Ruvimbo Primary School. In the police camps they did not allow
for maize to be grown due to security reasons, so she would grow
maize on the vacant council land outside Amaveni Police Station next
to the old Gokwe/Zhombe road. Growing crops on council land is
against council bye laws and in some years council workers would mow
down the maize crop but she and others would grow the crop again the
following year. After my father passed on, my mother bought her house
in Dombotombo township in Marondera and she continued growing
vegetables on all the spaces around her house and she also had space
on council land where she would grow maize, pumpkins, groundnuts,
roundnuts etc. during the rain season.
Zimbabweans
generally value education. My mother would work alone in her garden
as she wanted me to concentrate on my books. My mother wanted me to
be a teacher and at least she lived to see me become a teacher when I
worked as a temporary teacher between 1996 to 1997. Anyway as the
eldest child my job would be to water the garden and help here and
there to make the compost (as pictured above together with my Friend
Ishmael Kunaka we were digging to make a compost in 1993 at my
mother’s house).
In
2004 when I was working still working for Zimnat Lion Insurance as an
Underwriting manager, Russell Lister an Insurance broker approached
me about a Tobacco Hail Insurance Scheme. We then sat down to
finalise the scheme with Mr Tarupiwa Tarupiwa from Zimre Reinsurance
Company who had the backing of his boss Mr Mufaro Chauruka. It was
only then I learnt about the unique climate advantage that Zimbabwe
had when it came to Tobacco farming. We visited several farms
assessing the tobacco crop after a hail storm. The following year I
grew my first tobacco crop.
Amongst
my biggest regrets is that when I was growing up, I was surrounded by
many farmers such as my martenal grand father and my mother and I
never tapped into their expertise. My mother is gone with all her
knowledge and I am grateful for the little farming knowledge I
grudgingly learnt from her even though I never saw myself as a
farmer. I would have to go back home at some point and the reality is
with the Zimbabwean economy being what it is, I would have to
concentrate on farming. I am having to learn very fast what I should
have learnt decades ago.
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