Decision time for the US Democrats

This coming week will see a conclusion of some sort to the much reverting and enthralling Democratic Party primary presidential contest in the United States of America. Like many people around the globe, I have followed with great interest and excitement the see-saw contest between Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama for the right to represent their party in the November presidential elections. After Super Tuesday way back in February and for a few weeks thereafter it seemed Obama was unstoppable. Then came the bit about Reverend Jeremy Wright and the momentum was lost momentarily. Clinton was back fighting tenaciously and throwing every punch in the book at Obama to try and wrest the initiative. Then she was tangled up in her own spider-web after claims of dodging sniper fire in Bosnia were exposed as untrue or “misspeak” (in her own words). Then it was game on once again.

I admire the American democratic process. It allows anyone who has a good message to have a shot at the most important and powerful job in the world, the presidency of the United States of America and the combatants in the current contest are a true reflections of this. Regardless of who triumphs in this primary and ultimately in December, one of the two Democratic Party antagonists will be making history - one as the first ever female president of the United States and the other as the first ever black (or non-white) president. Even the Republican Party candidate, John McCain, will write himself a piece of history as the oldest person to be elected president if, of course, he goes on to capture the crown.

A lot has been said about Clinton being part of a dynasty that wishes to perpetuate its rule over the American people but it should never be forgotten that the people are still making a choice of their own free will. And Clinton has worked extremely hard to remain in the race and to try and claim the right to be the representative candidate. The numbers are not on her side and although she might have gained some momentum, it is now probably a question of too little too late. Some people may say that the lengthy contest has been harmful to the Democratic Party’s chances come November, but I don’t buy that argument. I think the contest has been good for the party. It has strengthened the resolve of both candidates and honed in their skills.

Current polls show that either of the Democratic Party candidates will beat McCain in November although with slim margins. Once the nomination is finalised and the Democratic Party machinery starts firing in one direction, I suspect that the margin is going to widen considerably. By November, the race could well have been decided even before the first ballot is cast. No, I am not biased against McCain, I just think that the Republicans under President Bush have made themselves almost as unelectable as the Labour Party has now become in the UK and as Zanu-PF under Robert Mugabe is in Zimbabwe. It would take some real monumental lapses on the part of the Democratic Party candidate to hand the election to the Republicans.

But I must confess that I am biased towards the candidacy of Obama. He is a most exciting politician with a fantastic personality and absolutely fabulous ideas. I am currently reading his book, The Audacity of Hope, and I find a lot of his ideas very plausible. His campaign has been about change and his ascendancy to the highest office would represent a really true and defining change in the American political system and its national psyche. In a piece which I wrote earlier this year, I observed that an Obama presidency would be good for Africa but I am now persuaded to take this a bit further – his presidency would be good for the world. Here are my reasons.

Obama is the only candidate who has come out with a clear and unequivocal message that he will put a stop to America’s war in Iraq. I believe that this war was justified and necessary to remove a brutal and dangerous dictator. I should add that I would support a similar effort to remove Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. But the job in Iraq is now done and the Americans should go home and let the Iraqis sort their mess out. If another dictator comes in, by all means, they can return and do another “Saddam”. However, as it stands now America’s continued presence in Iraq is poisoning its international relationships and reputation as a leader of the free world.

Obama is the only candidate who has demonstrated an appetite for dialogue and peacemaking in the world. He has not come out as a trigger happy cowboy prepared to stay the course in Iraq (as McCain is promising) or to pulverise Iran (as Clinton has declared). Obama has proposed negotiating with America’s enemies like Iran, Syria and Cuba and others around the world. This is a most desirable position to take in that it recognises that America cannot use its military and economic might to subdue all its enemies. If Obama can deliver on his peace promise, then his presidency might be one in which America may not be fighting any war anywhere and with anyone.

Finally, Obama may just be the person to unite America and the world. He has shown an interest in taking a more bi-partisan approach to American politics and is reaching out to the left as well as the right and to democrats and to republicans. His presidency may very well help to heal the rifts caused by the present polarising party politics. He also seems to be well liked, if not adored, internationally – he certainly has a big following in Africa among many of my friends and contemporaries. I believe that this ability is only unique to him among the present presidential contestants – I see a tiny bit of that in McCain but certainly not in Clinton.

However all these are just musings - I will not be voting in America in November so who I favour and why I favour them may not matter one jot. But I think that there are some lessons to be learnt from this for Africa. In April my country went to vote for a new president but the results remained unknown for more than a month and when they were eventually announced the results suggested a need for a rerun because no candidate had achieved the desired majority. One was left wondering why it took so long to announce if the results were so obvious. The country is gearing up for a rerun in June but so far there has been little or nothing about the issues that need to be confronted – a collapsed economy, non-existent public services, etc. All there has been is bad news about violence being perpetrated against the voters by supporters of the ruling party.

Why can we not have peaceful elections in which the candidates present themselves and their issues to the voters and allow the voters to make their free choices? Just imagine what would happen if Clinton and Obama supporters were fighting and killing each other in the course of their campaign. Imagine if George Bush had ordered the US army to be deployed to American rural areas to campaign for McCain and to intimidate and punish the Democratic Party candidates and supporters. Why do these things happen in Africa and why do we let it happen? If you can figure it out, please let me know.

Mbeki is reaping the whirl wind

The xenophobic mayhem taking place in South Africa was bound to happen sooner or later. That country is in the grip of a crisis as its citizens have embarked on wanton murder of foreigners in protest against the threats to their livelihoods. More than forty people have been killed at the last count, homes have been destroyed and displacement of people is going on as I write this article. So serious is the crisis that the South African government has deployed its army to try and restore order in the affected areas.

This cannot be good publicity for South Africa, especially with the world cup which they are hosting - the first ever African country to do so - just two years away. The events in South Africa will cast a serious shadow on the country’s reputation and credibility as a just and tolerant society. The senseless murder of people whose only fault is that they have decided - for their own various reasons - to adopt South Africa as their homeland, temporarily or otherwise, is entirely unacceptable in the globalised world that we now live in. More so given the fact that during the apartheid era, many black South Africans sought and were granted refuge in many countries including those countries whose citizens they are now violently evicting from the country and butchering in their streets.

In my mind there is no doubt who the author is of this untenable situation which is tragically unfolding in Africa’s strongest economy. It is Thabo Mbeki, the President of South Africa through his flawed policy of appeasing and acquiescing with the dictatorship in Zimbabwe which has spawned the massive refugee crisis in his country. For many years, President Mbeki has either abated or encouraged the brutalising of Zimbabweans by the Mugabe regime through his policy of quiet diplomacy on Zimbabwe. Despite demonstrable, numerous and persistent failure of this policy, Mbeki has not changed course and continued to pretend that there is no crisis to worry about in his country’s neighbourhood.

For a long while I used to suspect that Mbeki was not willing to do anything about the problems in Zimbabwe because South Africa was benefiting economically and politically. Much of the investment in Zimbabwe or destined for Zimbabwe was being diverted to South Africa and this was helping to fuel the economic growth of the country. More importantly, South Africa has been the biggest beneficiary of the brain drain from Zimbabwe and has absorbed the best and brightest talents and skilled workers into its commerce, industry, mining, academic and other public bodies. Because black South Africans lacked the necessary education, training and experience, it was left mainly to the Zimbabweans and, to a lesser extent, other nationalities to assume leadership roles in organisations and present a semblance of “black” ownership.

From a political perspective, Mbeki knew that the fall of Mugabe’s political fortunes would only lead to the rise of his own stock within the continent and thus appeared to be quite prepared to let and encourage his Zimbabwean counterpart to commit political suicide. As the problems in Zimbabwe worsened, Mbeki became more and more in demand as the leading African statesman. The world was beating a steady stream to his doorstep to consult with him and to encourage him to take the leadership in solving the problems faced by his northern neighbour. And while he did not have any intention to do anything to solve Zimbabwe’s problems, Mbeki nevertheless continued to pretend to the world that he was doing something and that he was succeeding. To say that he failed, would be putting it quite mildly indeed. Mbeki’s initiative has been a disaster of the highest magnitude.

While Mbeki continued to fiddle, millions of Zimbabwean refugees were pouring across the border into his country by foot, by road, by rail and by air. Some estimates suggest that more than three million Zimbabweans are working or living in South Africa. This is no small number and it is bound to put a lot of pressure on both material resources and social infrastructure and services of the host country. Imagine, three million Zimbabweans competing for jobs, housing and other services and amenities with their South African hosts. I cannot but feel a weird sort of empathy for the poor South Africans. Sooner or later someone was going to say enough is enough and the South Africans have decided to express their frustration in a disastrous and quite tragic manner.

But the real tragedy is that someone must and should have seen this coming. The South African president has many highly paid advisors and someone should have warned him that the situation was not sustainable in the long term. There is no way that the country, even with its economic muscle, could have continued to cope with this large influx of foreigners without attracting local grievances and discontent. Something had to give and it did. The chickens have well and truly come home to roost and Mr Mbeki’s is reaping his whirlwind.

Are there any lessons that can be drawn from this? Plenty, I would like to think. For me the first lesson is that it is important to maintain good neighbourliness. This means working with your neighbours to tackle and resolve their own problems. If you see your neighbour’s house on fire, it is not a very good idea to stand by watching or, worse, to feed fuel to the fire. The fire may cross the boundary and engulf your own house as well. President Mbeki has had a lot of opportunity to put out the fire in Zimbabwe. He had the fire tender and plenty of water to douse the flames but instead of helping to put out the fire, he decided to water his garden.

The second lesson is that just as no man is an island, no country is an island. There is a close interdependency and interconnectivity between nations and what happens in one country may have significant impact on another. This is the whole basis upon which international institutions such as the United Nations, the African Union, the European Union, etc. exist. Yet our leaders in Africa have blindly and selfishly chosen to subordinate this internationalism to the doctrine of national sovereignty. Many issues which require collective solution are left to fester because the only way to resolve them may be regarded as violating national sovereignty. This was the case in Rwanda in the period leading to the genocide and is the case in Darfur, Zimbabwe and elsewhere. Sovereignty has been used as a convenient excuse for all manner of despotism and dictatorship and is now thoroughly discredited as a political discourse.

The third lesson is that no problem which is left unresolved will solve itself. For almost eight years there has been no effective action to solve the crisis in Zimbabwe and, far from the problem dissipating, it has worsened. Many political pundits predicted long back that the Zimbabwean crisis will have a contagion effect on the region, yet there does not seem to have been urgency in addressing and resolving the issues. South Africa is now feeling the pain of procrastination and so are many other countries in the region whose nationals are residing and working in South Africa. More than 15,000 Mozambicans are reported to have already fled from the violence in South Africa and as the number increases this is likely to place some strain on Mozambican political and economic fabric.

My concern is that the tragic events unfolding in South Africa do not assume a life of their own and divert attention away from the causative factors behind the events. Sending in the army to quell the violence will only provide temporary respite. The long term solution lies in destroying the roots of political, social and economic strife on the continent – undemocratic and dictatorial regimes such as Mr Mugabe’s in Zimbabwe. As Mr Mbeki’s limbs to the finishing line of his tenure in office, he must remember that his legacy, or the bit that is left of it, demands that he stands up and be counted on the side of the oppressed and suffering masses of Zimbabwe. So far he has been quite reluctant.

Electoral violence and intimidation in Zimbabwe

One of the most disturbing developments in Zimbabwe in the aftermath of the much disputed and controversial national elections is the violence and political intimidation that has been unleashed on the masses of Zimbabwe, particularly in the poor rural areas and farming communities. While both the Zanu-PF and MDC have been accusing each other of instigating the violence, there is growing evidence and consensus that the violence has predominantly been perpetrated by the Zanu-PF supporters against the MDC supporters.

Firstly, there are the eyewitness accounts. Most of those reporting violence against them have identified Zanu-PF militia and the so-called war veterans as the abusers, torturers and murderers. There is some consistency and assuredness in the allegations raised against the militia of the former ruling party which is increasingly becoming difficult to doubt, deny or to deflect. While there may well be isolated incidents of the MDC supporters retaliating few, if any, Zanu-PF supporters have come forward with indications or evidence of injuries or torture. Independent witnesses, including civil society organisations, high level diplomats and emissaries of governments mediating in the crisis have also verified that violence is indeed being perpetrated mostly by Zanu-PF supporters.

Second, Zanu-PF have the motive to perpetrate the violence. Any good detective investigating a serious crime will always look for the motive in order to identify the suspects. In this case Zanu-PF which was soundly trounced at the elections have the motive to cause violence for two main reasons. One, as retribution and punishment to those who dared to vote against the party and, two, as a tactic of intimidation to cow the electorate into voting for Mr Robert Mugabe if and when the run-off election is held. Zanu-PF have run out of options and incentives to bribe the electorate – no more farms to give away, no food to give in exchange of votes and no money to buy goodies (tractors, farming inputs, etc.) for the voters at election time. The only ace left up their sleeve is to physically beat their opponents into submission.

Third, the body count – dead and alive – clearly shows that it is mostly or only members of the opposition who have been victims of the violence in Zimbabwe. More than thirty dead and still counting, at least two thousand who have received treatment for grievous bodily injuries arising from assault and torture, thousands more displaced from their homes. And these are all MDC members or supporters or relatives or suspected affiliates. There have been suggestions that the MDC has been perpetrating the violence against its own people in order to tarnish the “good image” of Zanu-PF. If anyone can believe such hogwash, they deserve to be placed in a mental asylum. As the bodies continue to pile up, it is becoming questionable whether the level of violence is not tantamount to genocide.

Fourth, is the lack of suspects. In any lawful society if a crime is committed, the culprit is apprehended as quickly as possible and brought to book for the crime. There are the odd cases when the culprit is never found but that seems to be the exception rather than the norm. In Zimbabwe, criminal violence is being perpetrated at a massive scale and yet very few, if any, culprits have been arrested. The only arrests appear to have been of the opposition members who were in fact the victims of the violence in the first place. There would appear to be an official conspiracy, by the Zanu-PF controlled law enforcement agencies, not to stop the criminality and to allow and encourage the violence.

Given the overwhelming evidence against Zanu-PF, it would appear to be necessary to revisit the whole issue of amnesty for human rights violations if and when Mugabe finally leaves power. In the period leading to the elections and immediately thereafter I was quite persuaded that the offer of amnesty would be justifiable if not desirable in order to draw a quick line with the past and move the country forward. You see, we Africans are a very forgiving lot regardless of the nature and degree of the wrong or injustice committed against us. Look at what happened in South Africa. After many years of the cruelest form of apartheid the new rulers forgave their former oppressors and embraced them in a government of national unity. Therefore I would not see any problem or exception if an incoming MDC government decided to forgive the outgoing Zanu-PF functionaries for their past misdeeds.

However in the light of what is going on long after the election has been held and decided, I do think that there is a case for not providing any amnesty to those who have caused and are continuing to cause the violence in Zimbabwe. I do not think that there is any excuse or justification for this nature and level of violence other than sheer and unbridled criminality perpetrated by morons with the connivance of equally mindless politicians and army generals. I am persuaded that to provide amnesty in these circumstances will only encourage similar criminal behaviour in future. I think that those involved should be swiftly arrested, tried and firmly locked behind bars for a very, very long time in order to serve as a deterrence in future.

There is also another angle to the violence which I should explore a little further. The intent and assumption of those causing the violence is that it will results in more votes for their candidate, Mr Mugabe, or at the very least deter those who might wish to vote for his opponent from doing so. Zanu-PF has tended to use violence whenever they felt that the odds were against them but it is doubtful whether this tactic has been successful in the past. Some will say that Zanu-PF employed violence with a degree of success in the 1980 independence elections. But I do not think that it is the violence that swayed people’s votes towards them – rather it was the even greater trepidation induced by Ian Smith’s army and Abel Muzorewa’s Pfumo Revanhu militia which convinced the people to vote for Zanu-PF. Even in subsequent elections, most notably those of 2000 and 2002, there is no evidence that violence brought in the votes. It is probable that the ballot-box stuffing and other vote rigging shenanigans did the trick.

Perhaps the most illustrative example of the futility of using violence against the electorate is Mr Mugabe’s infamous Gukurahundi campaign in Matebeleland in the early 80s. The campaign was waged mostly to “persuade” the Ndebele people to stop supporting the rival ZAPU party and to support Zanu-PF but in all that period of the campaign Zanu-PF never won any election in Matabeleland. More than 20,000 people, by some estimates, were slaughtered and countless others were raped, injured and displaced but that did not deliver the Ndebele vote to Mugabe. It was only after the 1987 unity accord that Zanu-PF started winning elections in Matebeleland. In the light of that experience, I do not believe that the current pogrom of party cleansing by Zanu-PF will save Mr Mugabe from another humiliating defeat if he is foolish enough (which he probably is) to persist with his intention to participate in a run-off election.

The last point I want to visit is the now controversial issue of whether the MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, should not have left (or is it run away from?) the country and that he should have stayed on to face the Mugabe regime. The people who are making the suggestion that in so doing Tsvangirai displayed a cowardice streak have very short memories. Mugabe himself had to “run away” from Rhodesia (as Zimbabwe was known then) in order to lead the struggle from abroad. During the height of Gukurahundi, the late Joshua Nkomo had to escape from the country because Mugabe’s security forces were intent on physically eliminating him. With these precedents in mind I would strongly hesitate to label Tsvangirai as a coward. I believe he has achieved a lot more being outside the country than he would have achieved had he stayed on and, probably, been arrested or even martyred by the Mugabe regime. What the country needs now are strong and rational leaders around whom to rally and not dead heroes.

It’s the legitimacy, stupid!

I have just finished playing a round of golf with a colleague who asked me whether there is an end in sight to the crisis (what crisis?) in Zimbabwe. He is a foreigner who confesses to be an avid fan of President Robert Mugabe because he has been able to stand up to the western imperialists. I responded that I, like many other people, I suspect, did not quite know how this political impasse is going to be resolved. It’s likely to be some time before the whole drama fully plays out.

But this tête-à-tête got me thinking about what it is that got us in this mess in the first place. Barely ten years ago things were still relatively good or absolutely heavenly by today’s standards. Everything worked well. There was electricity all if not most of the time, the shops were full of goods, the cost of goods was reasonable, the farms produced enough food for the population, fuel was available at most service stations and the local currency held its own against most of the foreign currencies. But all that has vanished in less than a decade and the country has been reduced to a basket case much worse than the many neighbouring countries which had been considered as poor cousins. What tsunami could have hit the country? Or was it a meteor from a far off galaxy?

The simple answer is that President Robert Mugabe and his government lost legitimacy and this has been the main, if not sole, cause of the difficulties which the country has been experiencing in the past decade. Even before the loss of legitimacy, the signs were not good. The payout to the former freedom fighters in 1997 had badly dented the national coffers but the damage was repairable. The ill-advised intervention in the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo had also taken its toll on national resources but the country would have survived the foolish misadventure. The abortive constitutional reform process of 1999 flattered a little only to deceive when the majority of the citizens rejected the draft constitution. But the country could and should have survived that setback as well.

The real problems for Zimbabwe started in after the 2000 general election which heralded the arrival of the MDC as a genuine contender to the throne of power in the country. The official results showed Zanu-PF scrapping a narrow win over the MDC a party which had been established less than one year previously. However it is widely believed that the MDC won that election because apart from sweeping almost all the sits in the major cities across the country, the party also picked up some votes in rural constituencies in almost all the provinces of the country. Zanu-PF victories were confined almost exclusively to rural areas in Mashonaland and Masvingo.

It is alleged that Zanu-PF employed widespread intimidation of the voters and, in addition, rigged the results to secure the win. Two years letter, Zanu-PF employed the same tactics to secure a win for Mr Mugabe in the presidential contest against Mr Morgan Tsvangirai. And the same was said of the 2005 parliamentary elections. In all these instances, there were loud cries of foul by the opposition and some international observers. Whether the allegations of rigging were true or not, what they did was to raise questions on the legitimacy of the Mugabe government. Therein, I submit, is the root of Zimbabwe’s problem.

The world community has always been divided into those who believed that Mr Mugabe is a legitimately elected leader who is being victimised for his principled stand against white imperialists and for his noble quest to give land to the majority of his poor people. To this lot, Mugabe was and is a black nationalist hero who fought for the independence of his people, defeated white oppression and has fought to correct historical imbalances in land allocation in his country. There are threads of truth in some of this and so one can understand the reluctance of the generality of the African leadership to condemn Mr Mugabe for any of his misdeeds.

There is the other group who believe that Mugabe and his government have consistently stolen elections and their tenure in office is not mandated by the people through free and fair democratic processes but is a result of shameless manipulation and disregard of political will of the people. While this group is mainly comprised of those from the so-called western democracies as represented by Great Britain and the Unites States, the strongest core of this group is made up of the millions of Zimbabweans who have lost faith in the Mugabe government and have felt violated, humiliated and disenfranchised everytime Mr Mugabe “stole” their votes. Many of these millions have voted with their feet by leaving the country and settling elsewhere in the world and have vowed not to return until the status quo in the country has changed.

To many of these people, Mr Mugabe and his party lack the legitimacy to be president and government in the country. This is and has been the problem. Its hypocritical and plain wrong to blame Zimbabwe’s economic woes on Europe and America for imposing targeted sanctions against Mr Mugabe and his kith and kin. The real big and telling sanctions against Mr Mugabe have been imposed by his own people who have withdrawn their skills, labour and patriotism from the country and taken them elsewhere. This emigration has, more than anything, undermined the legitimacy of the Mugabe leadership and of his party’s government.

The 2008 harmonised elections presented a major opportunity for Mr Mugabe to put to rest, once and for all, all the questions about his legitimacy. The elections process, up to and including the balloting, were relatively fair and peaceful and it was expected that the results emanating from this would be both credible and acceptable. But as we all now know, that was not to be. It took more than five weeks for the presidential results to be announced and, when eventually they were, they attracted the sort of derision and scepticism that rendered them not credible. So even if there is a run-off and, against all odds, Mr Mugabe secures a victory he will not gain any legitimacy.

Without legitimacy, Mr Mugabe and his government will never receive international recognition and support which it badly needs to recover the economy and improve the welfare of its people. He will always be fighting for his survival and this will place significant constrains on his ability to act rationally and in the best interest of the country and its people. Mr Mugabe and his supporters should appreciate that it’s not just about securing an electoral victory, as they are trying to do. Much more importantly, it is about securing the victory in a manner which will ultimately result in him and his government regaining the legitimacy which they have lost so far. So far they seem not to understand this or to care.

The food price crisis and what to do about it

The past few weeks have been inundated with news about escalating food prices on the world markets. This is in addition to the perennial issue of food shortages that has dogged many of the developing countries for decades. Along with water, food is the first and foremost basic necessity in life. The whole concept of human rights revolves around the issue of food because where there is no food there is no life. And where there is no life all other rights cease to exist and/ or have no meaning or relevance.

So I think that the issue of food deserves the international media attention that it has been accorded in recent weeks and that there should be a more concerted effort by governments to reduce or eliminate the problem of escalating food prices and ongoing food shortages. I am not a food economist and therefore my grasp of the underlying issues and concept may be a bit tenuous or faulty. But to my defence and credit, I was born in a farming family and lived most of my early childhood in a faming community. During their time, both my grandfather and my father were farmers of significant reputation and status in their communities. So I have more than a rudimentary understanding of what it means to produce food and to feed others.

My own sense of this whole issue is that there are two distinct and separate problems which need to be addressed. The one issue is of shortage. As far as I am aware this problem has been going on since the dawn of history and is a factor of many causes – natural and man-made. The lengthy draught which led to Jacob’s brothers travelling to Egypt to purchase grain is an example of a natural cause of food shortage. President Robert Mugabe’s land redistribution programme in Zimbabwe which resulted in the collapse of the agricultural industry and the consequent food shortages is a good case of the unnatural or man-made causes. Given that this problem has been with us from the beginning of the ages and will probably be with us at the end of time, I feel that I am not qualified nor am I able to do any justice to the subject.

The other issue is cost of food or its affordability. This implies that whilst the food is actually available, the price at which it is being sold is higher than what the people can afford. From that broader and general perspective, affordability may have little or no impact on availability. However at a micro (or individual) level, unaffordable price levels do often result in unavailability or shortages of food stuffs. If you cannot afford the food, then your shelves will be empty of that food stuff. In that context, therefore, the issue of price has a bearing on the issue of availability and this, in turn, impacts on the issue of the right to life. I felt I should share my views on the issue of cost of food or affordability in this week’s blog.

First, let me start by stating the somewhat obvious. The problem of high price or affordability of food is a man-made problem and is therefore, at best, avoidable or, at worst, resolvable. Economists tend to agree that, in its most basic and ideal form, price is a factor of supply and demand. Low supply and high demand result in higher prices while high supply and low demand lowers prices. In my view, food is one item that is so clearly susceptible to the vagaries and effects of supply and demand. This is because food is a basic necessity for every creature – human, animal or plant – large or small, rich or poor.

Population growth will always assure demand for more food. Past and ongoing efforts to slow down population growth has had limited success. In the developed countries, the effects of family planning (such as smaller families) have been neutralised by the effects of longevity. People are living much longer than before. In the developing countries, wars, poverty and disease play a significant part in keeping population growth in check but this is neutralised by the generally high birth rates. So the world population continues to explode spurring a higher and greater demand for food. That demand inevitably places higher pressures on the supply side leading to increased food prices.

So what is the solution? In my view, the solution is to establish and maintain a reasonable balance between supply and demand. However, as the demand side is that much more complex to lend itself to adequate and equitable controls, more focus must be given to the supply element. That is ensuring that there is enough food. But how do you ensure there is enough food available? The simple answer is by investing more in food production – in agriculture. There is little doubt in mind that investment in food production has declined quite considerably in most developing countries.

I mentioned earlier that I grew up in a farming community. My grandfather was one of the first beneficiaries (if you can call it that) of the colonial efforts at land redistribution. He was allocated a farm in Chesa African Purchase Area, Mount Darwin in the north-eastern part of Zimbabwe. Even though I was still young, I can distinctly remember that there was a high level of technical and administrative support that was available to my grandfather and the other farmers in the area. There were agricultural extension officers to provide expert advice on cropping and livestock management. Even the private sector played an important role of providing agricultural inputs such as seeds, fertilisers and chemicals on competitive terms and conditions.

During the rainy season, the fields would be lush green with healthy crops – maize, groundnuts, cotton and tobacco. The farmers would harvest enough food to sale on the market and earn enough money to educate their children including and up to university. There was always enough food left over until the next harvesting season. I remember attending agricultural shows and field days at which farmers show-cased their produce. In between cropping seasons, my grandfather, like other enterprising farmers, grew vegetables for the family and for sale to other farmers. He even grew wheat on the wetlands that dotted the farm which, when harvested, was pounded and baked to make very delicious and healthy bread. When my grandfather passed away, my father took over the farm and he similarly thrived for a long period in his life.

Sad to say all that seems to have gone. Today most, if not all, the farmers in Chesa are struggling. They may still grow just about enough crops to feed themselves and their families but they hardly make enough to sell on the market. With draughts occurring much more frequently than before and with Aids taking its toll on the young and active members of the farming communities, the farms are shells of their past and the farmers are now more susceptible to bouts of hunger. The recent land redistribution in Zimbabwe has spawned an even larger number of poor and hungry farmers.

I believe governments have to focus attention and energies back to farming and to food production. This requires a holistic approach that aligns land provision to land utilisation and productivity. As land is a finite resource, it is important that it is made available to those people that are able to effectively utilise it. It is equally important that those who have the land are provided with the means and support to increase and optimise production levels. This should include the provision of training facilities for farmers, extension services and access to financial resources. The private sector can and should play a significant part in all these areas.

In developed countries, farmers are treated with a great deal of respect and are given a lot of support by their governments including subsidies in inputs and price protection. In developing countries, we need to accord such respect and support to our farmers. We have to recognise that farmers are ultimately responsible for feeding the millions of people who have drifted into urban areas. If those urban people are not properly fed, they will soon rise up and start fighting their governments such as has been the case in Haiti, Senegal and other countries. It’s a scenario that governments can ill afford to encourage, much less to ignore.