Zimbabwe’s Commercial Farmers Face End to Subsidies

The mismanaged disaster that is Zimbabwe is about to get a new dose of unhappiness, but this time it is in the form of medicine that tastes bad. The government of President Robert Mugabe has informed the commercial farmers who took over white-owned farms 7 years ago that they are going to lose their subsidies next season. This is actually a good thing for the country in the long run, but in the short term, it isn’t going to feel like it.

Zimbabwe’s The Herald newspaper reported on a speech Central Bank Governor Gideon Gono made to a farmers’ group. The governor said, “It is now seven years since we reclaimed our land but we continue looking at government for support. Next season we will wean off all A2 [large-scale] farmers as they are now grown-ups.” This applies only to commercial farmers, according to Mr. Gono. Subsistence farmers will still receive government money.

Southern Rhodesia, as Zimbabwe was known when it was part of the British Empire, exported food to its neighbors. It remains fertile territory, and if the rains come, the nation should be able to feed itself and others. The US-based Famine Early Warning System says the country will be short 700,000 tons of corn (maize to readers in the Commonwealth) this year. This is what happens when urban elites tied to the government get handed farms expropriated by fiat. Urban elites aren’t very good at farming, yields drop, and inflation soars while the country starves.

By cutting off the subsidies, mainly because the government hasn’t got the money to continue paying them, the Mugabe regime is forcing those non-farmers to either become farmers, sell out or lose their land. Those who can make it as commercial farmers without the subsidy are unaffected. Those who can’t represent, by definition, a drain on the treasury whose land could be used better by someone else. Moving them out of the picture is a good thing.

At least, it’s a good thing if they go along with the idea. However, people tend to try to hand onto property even if they don’t use it wisely because, well, dammit, because they own it. This is where things could be very ugly. Either the government climbs down (probably by defining a lot of people as subsistence farmers when they are not) or the government forces these people to give up. The operative word is “force.” Zimbabwe has seen enough of that for a while. One has the feeling more lies ahead.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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