Ex-CFU leader: Not everyone can farm

via Ex-CFU leader: Not everyone can farm – New Zimbabwe 17/04/2015

FORMER Commercial Farmers Union president, Charles Taffs, has warned government against turning everyone into a “farmer” saying doing so was inviting “disaster”.

Taffs, who was speaking at the official launch of a new agriculture development company, African Farming Solutions, in Harare Thursday, said farming should be left to farmers if the country was to once again become the bread basket of the region.

“Not every citizen is a farmer and for real food security to be achievable farming must be left to farmers both small and large,” Taffs told delegates comprising former white commercial farmers, industrialists and politicians.

“Farming must be done professionally and to do otherwise is to promote poverty and perpetual dependency; and we must move away from this phenomenon”.

Once the bread basket of the region, Zimbabwe is now seen as a basket case following the haphazard land redistribution programme embarked on by President Robert Mugabe’s government from 2000 onwards.

Under the controversial land reform programme, experienced former commercial white farmers were replaced by inexperienced black farmers.

Since then, Zimbabwe has been failing to produce enough to feed its own people and depends on importing cereal and maize from neighbouring countries.

Taffs, who is the Chief Executive Officer of the newly formed African Farming Solutions, said Zimbabwe was failing to feed its people because of lack of modern farming methods on the part of the “new” farmers who continue to practice subsistence farming on commercial lands.

“Food security does not necessarily mean growing food for your family at a domestic level.

“We must move away from the notion that all farmers or families must grow maize,” he added.

“We must acknowledge that for Agriculture to become diverse, successful and sustainable there must be a combination of both large and small producers alike and to develop one at the expense of another is to invite disaster”.