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Perspective Stephen Mpofu
Zimbabwe boasts healthy seed commercial farmers and what remains is for those in authority to grow the potential farmers in the land reform laboratories and then transplant them onto suitable soil across the country for guaranteed future food security.

That — but in a less dramatic motivation of the subject in point — was the succinct message encoded in a call by Zanu-PF secretary for youth affairs Pupurai Togarepi at a belated 21st Movement celebration in Matabeleland South province last week.

Yet the impassioned land plea by the youths might be clouded over by anger or resentment aroused by Cde Togarepi’s earlier call for the dismissal of cabinet ministers and other civil servants whose performance left a lot to be desired and in the process tarnished the image of the ruling party.

The apamwamba, or high-ups, at least some if not most of them, might have reacted to the demand that underperformers among them be fired by regarding Togarepi as being cheeky for ruffling their beautiful feathers.

Viewed otherwise, the youth leader’s sentiments on slovenly public servants would appear to this pen to amount to an exhortation for conscientious service delivery by all concerned for the good of the nation as a whole.

Private companies, probably because they are seriously concerned about healthy profit margins and survival, seriously monitor the performance of their employees with those who sleep on the job facing short shrift if they do not pull up their socks as it were.

But it is to be hoped that a new move by the government requiring cabinet ministers to submit to Cabinet weekly diaries concerning their execution of work under Zim-Asset is a new point of departure by the state in monitoring the performance of ministers and of those under them so that the country moves full throttle ahead with all the requisite developmental tasks at hand.

The allocation of land as a “priority” to youths, as Cde Togarepi stated, should be taken seriously. A look back through the telescope of time shows how the young men and young women played an historic role as heroes by liberating the motherland from a racist, foreign ruling culture. As a result of the revolutionary struggle land today in this country remains a bequest to the born frees to use it in furthering the revolution and for the benefit of future generations.

It is unarguable that the youth of this country, as of other countries, pulsate with power – but power which however remains latent in the absence of national projects, such as land utilisation, on which to release it for the benefit of the nation and not on political violence or on some such anti-social behaviour.

If more youths today are resettled on land they will form a nucleus of future commercial famers and the country will be spared the ignominy of holding out the begging bowl for food to neighbouring states that people in this country previously fed in the heydays of food production as the breadbasket of southern Africa.

Some agricultural wise men interviewed on ZBC TV have given tips on what should be done to grow more farmers to feed not just this nation but others as well, as was previously the case.

One interviewee suggested that farmers should be given technology as well as equipment to ply their trade more efficiently.

This obviously suggests the provision of electricity, water and tillage until such a time as the farmers at various levels can adequately supply their own needs.

Another wise man spoke about the need for a two-crop policy under which the government would compel a tobacco farmer, for instance, to also grow maize on the side as a way of ensuring the nation’s food security.

It is true that in the spree for cash crops some farmers have abandoned the staple diet, maize, or small grains that are drought resistant in preference for either cotton or tobacco, even in areas where the former is not suitable.

With climate change spawning recurrent droughts, dual crops will appear to stand a good chance of averting food shortages and hunger such as drier parts of the country are facing today with food imports having been undertaken to avert starvation.

Land being sliced off astronomically large farms would appear to be the right candidate for occupation by youths to grow food crops or raise cattle or sheep or goats all of which are a necessity in this country and with lucrative markets abroad.

Large numbers of workers being laid off by companies which believe that a recent Supreme Court ruling on disengagement of workers has given them carte blanche rights to shed employees, might become paupers along with their families in the absence of something else to give them a new lease of life — and going back to the land becomes a truly viable alternative for their survival and that of their families.

Add to that list Zimbabwean families and individuals regularly being deported from South Africa but with nothing at home to fall back on. A bleak future for both categories of these people appears certain if they remain jobless and poverty stricken in urban areas or in the villages with no land to work.

Land reform therefore offers the only viable alternative for people without jobs to go back to the land and begin new lives there.

In retrospect, the recent, sudden lay offs of workers will no doubt go down in the labour history of this country as exposing the demonic ingratitude and satanic exploitation of indigenous workers by some companies — a strong case for the government to intervene and save more breadwinners and others from wanton dismissals by employers.