Zimbabwe Agriculture - history, present and where to from here

Zimbabwe agriculture is at the center of the catastrophe that started in 2001. The main reason for the rapid decline of the Zimbabwe economy, and its currency can be directly linked back to the land grab of 2001.

Like many other developing countries Zimbabwe heavily relies on agriculture to sustain its economy. In fact before the start if the Zimbabwe land inversions agriculture accounted for 41% of exports and some good 18% contribution to national GDP. Even though Zimbabwe's agriculture at the time of sharp and terrible decline of the early 2000s was mostly on cash crops, diversification had already began with more and more farmers venturing into horticulture.

Zimbabwe agricultural products

Zimbabwe's agricultural products are vast the following are some of them produced on a commercial scale;

1. Tobacco
2. Cotton
3. Maize
4. Sugar cane
5. Tea
6. Coffee
7. Fresh Flowers - roses etc
8. Citrus fruits
   
9. Dairy cows
10. Piggery
11. Beef

Despite the shocking decay in the agricultural sector of the economy the government of Zimbabwe  is still confident that agriculture will be restarted and regain its top status in the region of southern African.

Each year in the capital of Zimbabwe, Harare and other smaller towns and cities in Zimbabwe agricultural shows are organized as way of promoting small scale commercial farming and give agriculture its national prominence.

The agricultural sector in Zimbabwe is a wide scale employer especially of poor communities in rural areas. Prior to 2001 Zimbabwe agriculture was essentially run and controlled by the minority Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) which was mostly dominated by about 4500 white commercial farmers. These were in charge of 1/3 of the most productive land in the country.

Today after the controversial land reform programme under President Mugabe it is public knowledge that those linked to the ruling party of ZANUPF control much of the land with many holding multiple farms the tragedy of it all being that much of the land is under equipped and underutilized.

Efforts to carry out an independent land audit post the chaos of 2001 have been fiercely resisted within government. Even today in December 2009 there are continued reports of fresh inversions of farm land.

For many agriculture in Zimbabwe will only shine again after a thorough land redistribution exercise targeting powerful politicians guided by an independent land audit. In addition without relevant technology, inputs and machinery it will remain a pipe dream. Careful planning is also required to ensure inputs arrive in time ahead of a season which is not the case at the momment. Today fertiliser and seed arrive to most farmers half way into the season sometimes never.

The results are there for all to see.

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