Zimbabwe requires about 30000 tractors, an average cost of $1,2 billion, to productively utilise its arable land. At our best, it can take a century meet that target. The reasons often cited for this deficit include lack of capital by farmers and inadequate government support.
On the other hand, Zimbabwe has shelled out more than $3 billion worth of vehicles over the past 9 years, a third of which went to economy cars from Japan. The average landing price of an Ex-Japanese car is about $4000 and the average owner is the common man who earns below $600 a month.
A simple analysis of these numbers suggests that Zimbabwe has more of a priority problem than a money problem!
Agriculture contributes about 18% of the GDP of the nation and employs more than 65% of its people. Evidence has shown that growth in agriculture is up to 11 times more effective in reducing poverty than growth in any other sector. As the country is faltering at the brink of economic collapse, much of its challenges are attributed to lack of productivity in the economy. With some of the best soils in the world, vast underutilized land and arguably the most literate people, one would expect to find importation of farming machinery on the top of the list. Alas, it's one of the last.
Let me hasten to disabuse the common myth that says a car is an asset. It is not, unless one uses it to generate an income! Let alone a pre-used, fuel inefficient vehicle. It's largely a liability to the owner and the country as well- more than $100million worth of spare parts spent per year and high demand for fuel. An asset brings an income and that's what a tractor does! Just as we have economy cars, we also have compact, economy tractors. For the price of one Toyota Vitz, one can buy a two wheel tractor with ploughing and planting implement.
Not all people are farmers, true! But all people need to be productive and generate an income. This is what a tractor can do, both as a piece of machinery that makes use of idle land to feed the nation and as an asset that can be hired out to farmers as a business. In about 2 years one is sure to generate a surplus to what they invested in purchasing the tractor.
What is this two wheel tractor(2WT) I have been touting? It's a two wheeled version of the conventional tractor that can be used with various implements for ploughing, planting, harvesting, shelling, transportation, trench digging and even water pumping. It's simply a power source for a host of farm operations. Some call it a walk-behind tractor but with the right attachments, one can actually sit while operating it.The average cost in Zimbabwe is $2500 USD.
China, where we buy bulk of our weaves, gadgets and clothes, manufactures these tractors and lots of other farming machinery. Bangladesh, one of the biggest beneficiaries of these 2 wheel tractors, was a basket case in the 70s but as of 2010, 80% of all tillage activities are now mechanized and 75% of their wheat production is done by 2WTs. They have imported more than 300 thousand 2WTs, for every 30 farmers they have one 2WT owner(rural entrepreneurs) servicing the area. The importation of these tractors has fermented a lot of entrepreneurial activities, especially manufacturing and engineering services.
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| Credit: FACASI |
Investment in machinery like the two wheel tractors ensures maximum utilization of our land and food security, creates jobs and business opportunities, reduces drudgery and channels labour to more productive uses, reduces the cost of production of food and ultimately the prices and cost of living. It takes a day to do 3-5ha of tilling, planting and fertilizer concurrently. One person does in a day what 4 people used to do in six to ten days.
Purchase of one 2WT directly benefits 30 farmers; we have about 1.5 million smallholder farmers meaning 50000 2WTs will do. This is less than a quarter of the money we spent on Ex-Jap vehicles over the past ten years which we have nothing to show for anyway except a ballooning fuel import bill.
Rationality in economics demands that when one has limited resources, they should spend them on goods or services that bring the highest level of satisfaction. We can extrapolate that same principle to say it is highly irrational to borrow for the purposes of satisfying a want/luxury instead of a need(in our case, to produce).
In the same way that we mobilize resources through debt and savings, we should channel these resources to more productive endeavors. In the same way we do konde konde and stokvels for groceries and kitchen top-ups for utensils, why are we not doing the same to buy productive machinery and we wait on government? For crying out loud, farming machinery is duty free. If all of us can be vendors, we can as well be involved in agriculture! We have the land!
I am under no illusion that importation of these machines is the single panacea to the chronic economic woes bedevilling our nation. But I bet my last dollar, if we had more tractor/farm machinery sales than car sales, we would have had less problems. If we had more tractor loans than car loans, our future would have something to show for the debts and interests we paid. It would be a more progressive culture to celebrate purchasing of machinery than of trinkets and a much better picture of how we are working towards eliminating the relic of servitude our countrymen go through to produce food.
