eBusiness Weekly
This week, Wednesday to be precise, was World Food Day. The day is celebrated every year around the world on October 16 in honour of the date of the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in 1945.
For Zimbabwe, this year’s celebrations come at a time when many households are food insecure.
According to the Vulnerability Assessment Committee’s (VAC) evaluation report released this week, an estimated 4,7 million people are in need of food assistance between October and December 2019.
This number is projected to rise to 5,5 million people during the January to March 2020 period, which would be the highest number on record.
The severe food insecurity levels are mainly driven by a steep reduction in the 2019 domestic cereal harvest with the country harvesting only 780 000 tonnes of maize. The maize output is estimated to satisfy less than 50 percent of the national consumption requirement in the 2019/20 marketing year, compared to an average rate of about 80 percent in the past.
Granted, the shortage was partly caused by acts of nature, drought and Cyclone Idai, but we also have to admit that these are not the only factors that prevented the country from having a sufficient harvest.
For a country that boasts of the bulk of water bodies in southern Africa, Zimbabwe should be able to fend off poor harvests even in drought years.
According to FAO, of the estimated 12 430 dams in southern Africa (excluding South Africa) 10 747 are situated in Zimbabwe. Thus, 86 percent of the small water bodies and 93 percent of their surface area lie in Zimbabwe, which forms only 6,8 percent of the geographic area in the region.
This high concentration of small water bodies (SWBs) in the country can be related to the water resources availability and its seasonality in the country. Zimbabwe receives an annual mean rainfall of 266 666 million m3,7,5 percent of which is carried by the rivers. According to experts, this surface flow and ground water recharge, if utilised, would be sufficient for the country’s agriculture activities.
But failure to make use of these small water bodies through investment in irrigation infrastructure has meant the country always experience food insecurity in years of below normal rainfall.
This often leads to the second issue highlighted by the VAC report.
The country’s food insecurity is also a result of “significantly high food prices that have resulted in severe food access constraints”.
At the last count in June 2019, the year-on- year inflation had reached 175,66 percent with food inflation reaching 251,94 percent. With the bulk of foodstuffs being imported, a falling local currency makes imported products very expensive as prices are linked to the stronger currency, the US dollar in our case.
The substantial reduction in incomes from agricultural-related activities and high prices have also been severely impeding households’ ability to purchase food from markets. According to the 2019 VAC evaluation, the proportion of households relying on crop sales as a principal source of earnings declined from 22 percent in 2018 to only 8 percent in 2019.
With food and beverage purchases accounting for the bulk of low income households’ expenditure, even small rises in food prices can lead to reductions in food consumption and/or to a worsening of diet quality.
Furthermore, the broad increase in all food prices, limits households’ ability to substitute to cheaper foods (a key coping strategy) and could result in a net reduction of the overall food intake.
Tracing everything back leads us to how we are using our land. Zimbabwe is a net food importer. The country spent US$724 million on agricultural and food imports in 2018 most of which are imported by agro-processors.
Top imported products by value were: maize, soya bean oil, oil-cake (for animal feed), soya bean, flour and groundnuts, according to the International Trade Centre.
The third issue highlighted by the VAC report is that economic difficulties have hampered the country’s ability to access grains from the international market, with further adverse effects on domestic availabilities and prices.
Maize import requirements between now and the next harvest are forecast at 600 000-700 000 tonnes.
But importing these is not easy as the country has experienced a steep depreciation of the currency that has diminished its capacity to import food.
This again comes back to the very same issues. The country is partly food insecure because it is not optimally utilising its land resource.
With agriculture having gained prominence as one of the sectors that could bring about economic development and job creation, the Government’s approach to realise this vision should focus on areas of land ownership as well as targeted resource allocation.
Collateral value of land could help restore farmers’ access to bank credit that would immediately improve the country’s production volumes. Restoring property rights and private land ownership is the motivational force that is lacking for Zimbabwe to solve its food insecurities.
Turning the asset of land into a functional asset through title, through concession farming and other innovative instruments around agriculture land will help the country become food secure again.
