eBusiness Weekly
Clifford Shambare
Before we go further with this discourse, let us see what a union is, as well as its functions.
Generally speaking, a union involves the coming together of a number of things but here we are only concerned with people. In this category there are many types of unions; labour unions, farmer unions and so forth, being some of the main ones.
At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the earliest unions known were in the sphere of labour. This was an area where the workers found it necessary to come together to confront employers whom they felt were shortchanging them by paying low wages.
In those circumstances, the tendency among the employers was to fire, and in some cases, to blacklist the leaders of those unions after they had voiced their grievances.
The original position was that the employees desired to have their wages raised while the other party, the employers, wanted to maximise on their profits. Over time, both parties realised that they needed each other.
So, as in any conflict situation, this is where the negotiating process became critical.
As regards the agricultural industry, during the Second World War the British government realised that it had to build a sound relationship with its farmers.
This was the beginning of agricultural unions.
Following up on this relationship, we find that the EU is one organisation with one of the best relationships between the authorities and farmers in the world. This is a relationship that is all encompassing in that it involves all the aspects surrounding farmer’s interests and the worker’s rights. It also includes the funding of the agriculture industry, authorities’ representation of the agriculture industry in world trade, as well as taking care of the environment.
At this juncture, let us continue to interrogate this matter of agricultural unions.
In this case a Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) paper (wwwciesin.org) by Jean Bonnal sums up the modern role of the farmers’ unions. Here is a quote from it: “The professionalisation of agriculture is one action that contributes towards privatisation and the strengthening of civil society. This objective is to give farmers the place they deserve in civil society in easing their access to the economic process, to markets from which they were excluded and integrating their activity in the general economy”.
There are several issues we can glean from such a statement. One of these is the politics that is embedded in the matter of unions. Here we need to remember that this is a matter that involves food; and it is a known fact that food politics rank high in the life of man. This is especially so today when human rights have become paramount. Remember the right to food, clean water etc?
In this same statement — that speaks to the empowerment of farmers — is a call to the farmers to demand their place in the whole system.
Then there is the criticality of agriculture in the world economy (Refer to my article in this paper: Revisiting the matter of raw materials). Here the bottom line is the farmer’s access to the markets — the place where the viability of the farming operation is determined.
The other aspect is the matter of the ‘economic process’ in which are implied agricultural technical advancement, an environment in which the farmer should not allow himself to be left out of if he has to remain viable, if not to just survive. Here is where the financial aspect of the whole farming business becomes broad and all encompassing.
Ultimately, it is all about the viability of the farming business. This essentially means looking at both sides of the farming equation – that is, the input and output sides.
In this case, in which the farmer needs funding, government has to come into the equation. This is more so now that most commercial banks are not willing to fund farming operations and/of farmers.
Here we have two sides to the equation – that is the input and output sides. On the input side there is a need to have capital [inputs] and operational inputs. The first category comprises machinery and equipment as the main items. The other category on the input side comprises working capital, energy — that is, fuel and electricity as well as fertilisers and chemicals.
The output side has two aspects to it; these being `production for the local and export markets. Here governments have often looked at this aspect from two perspectives. On the internal market side, there are strategic products. In the case of Zimbabwe, these are maize and wheat, the staple crops for the nation.
But having said that, there are such important agricultural products as soya beans, milk and beef as well as the other less strategic but still important, products such as fruits and vegetables.
Nonetheless, the latter are still important for the economy if only more funding could be provided for their development. For example, a country like South Africa that spends considerable sums for research and development production, etc, has 23 percent of its GDP being contributed by horticultural exports.
In the developed economies such products as beef and dairy are still regarded as critical, whereas developing economies still concentrate on such products as staple foods of mostly, a cereal nature.
Sometimes prices in the agricultural industry have not been adequate to enable farmers to stay viable. This is the reason why we often have farmer demonstrations and strikes that we witness the world over today with eggs and tomatoes being thrown at those nearby in city streets.
In all such cases, the normal thing to do for governments is to intervene since if the farmer goes bankrupt it is the government and ultimately, the nation that becomes bankrupt.
As far as the agricultural industry is concerned, one of the developments that have catapulted the developed economies to the next stage is its involvement in the secondary stock market—these being grain and pork futures markets, among others. In that realm, accurate information is required; this presupposes accurate data. In the same realm, value chain valuations and audits become an integral part of the system.
At this juncture, let us zero in on Zimbabwe. In doing so let us carryout a systematic analysis of the current conditions. From there, we go on to articulate the challenges being met and then propose solutions.
But in order to do justice to this matter, let us look briefly into its history. Here we find the oldest farmers’ union being the Commercial Farmers’ Union (CFU) founded as the Rhodesian Farmers Association in 1896 by the colonial white farmers. Notice here the coinage ‘commercial’, that was not by accident but was meant to distinguish this union from the ones run by the ‘natives’.
Some of the most prominent leaders of this union were David Spain who died in a motor accident in 1982 and then Nick Swanapoel. As it turned out, both these men were well respected by the black government, even today despite.
The blacks were represented by the Zimbabwe National Farmers Union originally chaired by the likes of Robinson Gapare, then Gary Magadzire and later Silas Hungwe and now Abednigo Nyathi.
On the other hand, another union — the Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers’ Union (ZCFU) was formed in the country around 2000 or there about.
Racism aside, in terms of the quality of management, the CFU was the best of them all, but why do I say this? On further analysing this union’s style of management, we find it having a good technical department whose crop budget analyses were quite advanced.
For example, they carried out clear value chain analyses for the main crops grown in the country. In order to achieve this state, they had separated their extension service department from the government one which operates like most government departments with rather lethargic and nonchalant attitudes among their staff.
However, here we have to remember that previously, there had been two departments of extension, the Department of Conservation and Extension (Conex) for whites and for small scale commercial farmers, most of them black, and the other — that is, the Department of Agricultural Development (Devag) for communal farmers.
In terms of the quality of staffers, the Conex had the cream. It had ‘poached’ from government, agricultural graduates and diploma holders with good experience.
Conex’s condition spoke to good data and information systems. But then, here we also have to appreciate that the farmer himself, is an important element in such a system. In this case, the above average white farmer had a relatively advanced literacy level. This meant that the data collection processes, whenever they were required, were done relatively easily, quickly and accurately.
This is a condition that gave the union considerable strength when it came to negotiations of any form, be it with government, lenders, or any entity internally and externally.
Compare this situation with the one pertaining to the Africans’ set up today. To begin with, in most cases, the representatives do not even know how many farmers they will be representing. In the same breath, there is the challenge of large numbers of farmers. For example, over 380 000 farmers got land during the land reform programme.
Secondly, data collection is a serious challenge because of the large numbers involved. This is where we find the unions, and sometimes, the authorities, resorting to the use of NGOs for data collection and/or survey purposes. In most cases, the latter go on to do complete analyses which they use for their own purposes. Under those conditions, misuse and/or abuse of information cannot be ruled out.
Overall, these are conditions under,
which unions cannot clearly articulate their position and the nature of their challenges. It is under such conditions that the authorities are compelled to draw up policies using unclear information. Obviously, this is an undesirable situation.
As the situation stands, there is a serious disconnect between the new farmers, whose status is rather fuzzy, the communal farmers and the authorities. The result is that when it comes to the agriculture industry, Government is literally groping in the dark. (Here it needs to see and appreciate the bigger picture).
This assertion is backed by the latter’s apparent lack of understanding of the current challenges dogging this industry.
For example, this country is currently experiencing a serious shortage of agricultural equipment. This is one of the major reasons why its agriculture industry is failing to stabilise and to grow.
But when considered superficially, this challenge can easily be attributed to incessant droughts. However, droughts are not enough to explain the whole predicament. In order to be better informed on the matter, a regression analysis needs to be done here. This logic takes us back to the matter of accurate data and information.
On the other hand, it may still be argued that the government is aware of this challenge; this is why it is advocating for Private Public Partnerships (PPPs) which seem [to them] to solve it.
But in the long term this is a strategy that could prove detrimental to the original goal of government, that of black economic empowerment. At this stage you may be wondering how such a strategy interferes with the later goal. Here is how:
You see, most indigenes who are involved here are not directly involved in the farming operation since they live in town. Moreover, they did not do much to acquire their part of the capital contribution to the partnership, so they are virtually passive investors who have not actively acquired the said investment.
Back to the unions: Here something has to be done to revive these unions. We simply need unions that are better connected to the grassroots farmer and [to] the authorities; otherwise our challenges in this industry will continue unabated.
Such an outcome will be good for all the stakeholders—that is, the authorities, the banks, the farmers and the service providers.
But then, unions need to be funded, and who should play this role? The farmer of course. But when confronted with such a challenge under current conditions, the Zimbabwean farmer is apt to complain that he does not have the money. If he happens to have the money—itself a rarity, he cites corruption in high places. In that case, the latter cannot deny such allegations with a straight face.
This takes us back to the creation and running of functional systems. This is an art that we, as Zimbabweans, have so far demonstrated by default, that we are not good at; witness all the systems that we have killed by default.
Shambare is an agriculture economist reachable on 0774960937
