Urban poor take to farming cemetry plots

It is midday at the Mabvuku cemetery on the eastern outskirts of the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, and a funeral is in progress. A few metres away, groups of people are preparing patches of land for planting maize and sweet potatoes. Farming in cemeteries has been a lifeline for many Harare residents struggling to cope with the ongoing economic crisis and spiraling prices. Lucky Marime, one of the cemetery farmers, told IRIN it was common practice to grab unused council land for farming, which then remained "in the family" until the council claimed it back. At Mabvuku, most idle land outside and inside the cemetery had already been claimed for urban farming. "There is no space for newcomers here. If you see a piece of land not yet prepared, it does not mean it is free - it has already been booked but the owner has just not started his preparations yet," Marime explained. Although he did not have any land in the cemetery himself, he was often hired to prepare and till land for others, he added. Similar land encroachment is evident at two larger cemeteries in the capital, Warren Hills on Bulawayo Road and Granville on Harare's southern edges, despite the presence of council officers at all burial grounds. Council spokesman Leslie Gwindi told IRIN that the practice of cemetry agriculture would no longer be tolerated. "What they are doing is illegal. We do not care if it has been happening for 10 years, we will nip it in the bud - cemeteries are not for agriculture. Culturally it's not right to grow foodstuffs where there are dead people," he said. Keeping the cemeteries free from intrusion and "beefing up security" would be part of a general "cleanup" campaign currently underway in Harare's central business district, he said. Policing large far-flung cemeteries with little or no security fencing is likely be a mammoth task - Grenville cemetery, the country's newest and largest, stands on 250 acres of former farmland, most of it unprotected. Land grabbers and other intruders, including vendors, gain access through a number of entry points. The vendors can be seen trotting after a funeral cortege and then waiting at a respectful distance to be approached for service. "Sometimes the council workers chase us away, but we keep coming back," Mavis Garande, an 18 year-old vendor told IRIN. Dr Gordon Chavunduka, president of the Zimbabwe Traditional Healers' Association, described cemetery agriculture as "culturally wrong", but added that simply flushing out the farmers was not the answer. "People are desperate - council must assist them to look for alternatives. The government and the people, together, must deal with the economic problems," he told IRIN. A survey conducted by the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe in September revealed that a low-income urban family of six needed Zim $1.5 million (about US $266) a month for basic commodities, and a number of low-income workers, many of them living in areas bordering the cemeteries, earned less that Zim $750,000 (about $133) per month. Unemployment in Zimbabwe currently stands at 70 percent. But the HIV/AIDS pandemic may eventually force the cemetery farmers out. According to recent estimates, more than 2,500 people die every week of AIDS-related causes in Zimbabwe and the cemeteries are filling up fast. "Last year some people's maize had grown a metre tall when it was destroyed to make way for the graves," Marime at Mabvuku cemetery told IRIN. Grenville opened less than 10 years ago and was expected to provide sufficient burial space for 40 years but is already more than half full.