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MESSAGE TO YOUTHS IN FARMING: Figuratively speaking, policy shift requires a swarm of swallows to make a summer. Over the months, I have noticed with immense excitement more and more youths getting into Agriculture. I see it even in my own household. This is a very good omen for
...our Land Reform Programme and our Nation. The numbers both on the land and requiring land are growing. So, too, are numbers of youngsters who inherited land from deceased parents, but without the wherewithal to farm, both by way of means and skills. In some cases, even absence
...of interest. A few are quietly coming to me to ask for partnerships. The honesty is humbling, and my attitude has been one of playing an intermediating role between unused means and unmet need, but within policy parameters set by Lands Ministry. But the two developments have
...tickled my policy-making side: how to fine-tune Land Policy to make it adaptable and responsive to emerging needs. That is our job in Govt which many do not always know or recognize. The key thing is the Youths have made enough gestures and noises to gain notice. It is a huge
...step forward. I should have added another dimension: that of Youths who were in diapers when Land Reforms unfolded. They feel condemned by contingencies of time, which no man and woman born of woman can control. Overall, the case for policy notice & accommodation is compelling
My little advice to Youths actively engaged or interested in working the Land is consolidating their networks and voices. Generally, Govts don’t act on aberrations; they are moved by demonstrable trends, which often equate to numbers. Hence my figurative reference to swallows.
The Youths in Agriculture have yet another string on their bow, even though I get the sense they do not realize it. The Secretary in charge of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Resettlement is one of you. The Minister is a man of letters, an ideas-man. The President has
....clustered key functions which have a bearing on you under one Portfolio, giving you an enterprising leadership to mind that Portfolio which, by the way, reports to Vice President Chiwenga, an action man. The ground is auspicious. One other thing on your side is your skills
...and footloose habits. Terry who is the face of this new wave, read politics up to university. The tertiary foundation is there, firmly so. Knowledge uptake is rapid, innovation, your second nature. You don’t fear risks, change, both characteristics of the peasant throughout
...human history, societies. Marx claimed peasants are wrapped in what he derisively called “rural idiocy”! I won’t agree, or go that far, being of peasant born. But I concede the basic fact that innovation comes expensively to this hugely productive class where security of
...traditions and tried and tested reigns supreme. Even were innovation is embraced - and Pfumvudza is a case in point - the shift is glacial. Not so with the youths who, by definition, are impulsive, impatient & for quick results. Herein lies their value: we can insert new ways
...of doing Agriculture on them. Looking in the crystal ball, Agriculture will be driven by aptitude, not by habit & practice. That future defines a new cadre on the land, which the current exuberant youth supplies. I am excited. Foot loose, I said. Advisedly. Old-young as I am,
...the talk of producing for foreign markets intimidate me stiff. My market horizon is GMB, and no other, further! It’s a generational thing. I only stepped out of Zim for prolonged stay in 1996, even then for a mere year. I don’t know much beyond our borders, fear it!!! No so
...with this young generation. They have gone places, survived there, to come back having conquered the diaspora. They know the by-ways, the whys & wherefores. Above all, they have contacts abroad who can become instant receiving agents for exports they may forward from our Zim.
The Chinese do it so well: a human wave into a targeted market to begin with; goods and services for that market to follow. In our case, the economic meltdown which is beginning to give way to recovery and growth, gave us a circumstantial outward wave, to many key global markets.
What hasn’t followed and needs to NOW, are goods and services, both using our diaspora as marketing BEACHHEADS. The youths have this sense of the global, the venturesome spirit, as their forte. We are on the cusp of great things. IF ONLY WE DO RIGHT!! TWABAM!!!
