(4/8/01) We are clearly going to see either the end of Mugabe's reign or the end of white farming in Zimbabwe. The reason is politics. The number of farm workers and their family members living on the white farms comes out to either one or two million, depending on whose estimate you believe. In a February, 2000 referendum on a new constitution which would give Mugabe more power the white farmers encouraged their workers to vote no and the measure lost by 100,000 votes. At that point the white farmers fate was sealed and Mugabe was determined to eliminate them from the country. The only way to avoid this is for Mugabe's reign to end and there are only two ways this could happen: an invasion from South Africa or the old man drops dead. While SA has already invaded Lesotho after a disputed election their black leaders will never invade Zim while it is in conflict with whites. To do so would be to set a precedent for SA to be invaded during a conflict with whites. SA's black leaders will never set this precedent. As to the second possibility, Mugabe is reputed to be a fitness enthusiast who takes good care of himself. The smart money is on the white farmers being gone before the next planting season in November.

Given that whites in Zim live a life similar to that of medieval Jews and have zero political power the impact of their leaving will not be political, but economic. I've already written on the question of what will be the economic impact of this change. Now I want to discuss how this change will impact on the likelihood of famine coming to Zimbabwe.

The whites initially defeated the native tribes in the 1896-97 wars through the threat of famine. The native Shona and the Ndebele tribes stored their grain in caves to get them through the dry season. The whites rode around dynamiting all the caves until the tribes realized that if further grain stores were destroyed they would starve. Since the recovery from this war Zimbabwe and its earlier incarnation as Rhodesia have not had a single famine, or even a severe shortage. No one living in this country has any memory or concrete experience with famine. They most likely never will, in the sense of starvation leading to death. America and Europe will see to it that no one reaches this point. The question is whether or not the likelihood of needing this assistance will increase and by how much. Since these people are not going to starve to death I will use famine to mean growing less food than you eat.

White farmers produce 4 times as much corn per acre as the black farmers on the communal lands. Zim's commercial farms average 4 tons of corn per hectare and the communal lands average 1 ton per hectare(1 hectare = 2.47 acres). Both the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization and the U.S. Department of Agriculture use these yield numbers. The FAO has a nice graph of white and communal corn yields from 1980 to 1998. I've never seen this difference in corn yields mentioned in a single news report, despite the fact that corn is the staple food of the country. When the white farmland is redistributed to black farmers it will not necessarily lead to a 3/4's reduction in yield. The redistributed white farmland receives more rainfall and will not have the disadvantage of being communally owned. However, if the redistribution does result in a reduction in corn yields this will have a serious affect on the food situation.

There is 2.7 million hectares of arable land in Zimbabwe. In the 1990's an average of 2.3 million hectares a year was planted. Most of the unplanted land was in the white farms. To stay alive Zim's 12 million people need a minimum of 1,600 calories a day or 2 million tons of grain(mostly corn, but also wheat and millet). To live healthy and normal lives Zim's people need 2,400 calories a day or 3 million tons of grain. The 6 million blacks in the communal lands only grow an average of 1 ton of corn per hectare instead of the 4 tons per hectare of the white farmers. These numbers should be enough for the reader to judge the situation for himself.

If the redistributed white farmland produces at the same level as the communal lands the country will face malnourishment even if every hectare of arable land is farmed. Just to avoid starvation Zim will have to devote all of its arable land to corn, which will bring a complete end to the agricultural export industry. This will produce massive unemployment in the cities.

A serious issue is whether or not the redistributed white farmland will fail to produce due to corruption in the distribution process. There are many reports of entire farms being given to politically powerful figures, rather than being broken up into 140 hectare plots as planned. These political figures do not seem to be interested in even mere 'gentleman farming' and the land they receive appears to be going unused. How much land is distributed in this manner will have a large impact on the food situation. Here are links to reports of corruption in land distribution(1,2,3,4,5),

Another issue is whether or not Zim will be able to survive droughts as well without the white farmers. The white farmers have shown a greater ability to maintain production during droughts than the black farmers in the communal lands. During droughts the share of all production which comes from the white farmers increases. If the redistributed white farmland does not continue to produce during droughts as it has before than Zim will have to import almost all of its food requirements during droughts or face mass starvation.

The rainy season in this very dry country lasts from November to March. The rainy season didn't show up for the 1991-1992 season and it was the worst drought in living memory. The figures from the 1992 harvest show the disparate affect on white and black farmers. The communal lands only produced 12% of their average corn production for 1991-1998 while the white farms produced 25% of their average corn production for the same period. Only the white farms produce wheat and production was 30% of average. While the white farms usually produce 47% of the combined corn-wheat crop they produced 66% during the drought year. If this superior production during drought is not matched after the land distribution Zim will be even more reliant on grain stockpiled during the good years than before. This assumes that during the good years Zim will still be able to produce enough to stockpile. If land redistribution means that the good years are not as good, then the bad years are going to be even worse.

I think the most interesting question is how the end of white commercial farming will affect the black communal farming. As one might have gathered by now the communal lands are not very productive. I fear that they may be even less productive than they appear. 40% of the income of the 6 million residents of the communal lands is earned by working in the urban areas or on the white farms. Part of this money is spent on fertilizer and other agricultural inputs which raise productivity. Without the urban economy to draw on these communal lands may not be able to achieve their current levels of food production.

The urban economy will not exist without the agricultural exports currently coming from the white owned farmland. In the satellite photo at the top degrees of redness indicate the amount of vegetation on the ground. One can clearly see the borders of the communal lands by the oddly shaped bare patches. If these bare patches cannot feed themselves without the aid of off-farm income then a destruction of the urban economy would lead to lower food production on the communal lands.

The value of the communal lands may be overstated for another reason. The experts are assuming that the communal lands feed all 6 million official residents as well as feeding an additional 3 million through corn sold on the domestic market. I question whether the communal lands are truly feeding all 6 million official residents. Plots of land are given out by family in these areas and must be farmed or returned. Many of these plots are being farmed by the wife alone while the husband lives in the city. While the husband in the city is obviously not living off of the product of his family's small plot, he is being added to the figure of 6 million official residents being fed by the communal lands. If all of these husbands become unemployed and return from the city the experts might be in for a shock.

The nightmare scenario is if the redistributed white farmland stops exporting while also producing very little food and the communal lands cannot feed themselves without the missing income once produced by the agricultural exports. In this scenario massive food shortages will exist for years as the problems caused by land degradation in the communal areas is no longer covered up by high yields on privately owned commercial farms. Because satellite photos do not show similar land degradation in other African countries it is possible that Zimbabwe will face shortages more persistent than the African famines we are familiar with.

Experts are currently predicting that Zim will have to import .8 million tons of grain this year to avoid starvation. Much of this can be attributed to short term effects of the farm redistribution. The question remains whether the long term effects will mean that Zim will have to import or more likely be given food for years on end. I don't believe black farmers on privately held land will do as well as the 4 tons of corn per hectare that the whites achieved, but I don't think they will do as poorly as the 1 ton per hectare achieved in the communally owned lands. I also believe that in the same way satellite photos reveals how degraded the communal lands are, the end of white commercial farming will reveal how dependent these communal lands were on outside sources of income. I think we will see Zim settle down into growing barely enough food to survive through the good years, and being enormously dependent on foreign charity in the bad years. In other words, it will become just another African country.

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