Infrastructure development could stave-off food shortages

Rehabilitating irrigation schemes and major dams in Zimbabwe's arid Matabeleland South province could help ease its perennial food shortages, experts told IRIN this week. Over the past 10 years the cattle farming province has had its fair share of misfortune. The government has proclaimed the region a disaster area every year since 1998 as a result of droughts, flooding and pestilence - including outbreaks of foot-and-mouth which led to the death of over a million head of cattle. Edward Mkhosi, a former provincial land-use planner with the Agricultural Rural Development Authority in Matabeleland South, told IRIN that if all the derelict irrigation schemes were revived, and existing water resources put to maximum productive use, the province could feed itself. He said the province has more than 16 large irrigation schemes and many smaller ones, which had all been neglected but could be revived with government support and handed over to communities. "Matabeleland South can be a successful model of mixed farming - it is cattle ranching territory and can also do very well as a crop-farming area through irrigation ... this would guarantee local communities' food security, if technical guidance is provided to farmers. What is lacking is a coherent plan," Mkhosi said. Following a devastating drought in 1991/92 the government was able to build six major dams in the province, with the assistance of donor funding between 1995 and 1998, to ensure water and food security. However, Mkhosi noted that some of the bigger dams, such as the Mtshabezi and the Zhovhe, near the town of Beitbridge on the border with South Africa, were not being used at all. "In Gwanda and Beitbridge, many irrigation schemes were destroyed by floodwaters during the Cyclone Eline floods of 2000. No repairs have been done and some water engines that were swept away by flooding have not been replaced. Smaller schemes and nutrition [vegetable] gardens have also been neglected due to a lack of government support," he added. The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Resettlement, Joseph Made, told IRIN that although government had run short of money for its cattle restocking programme and the rehabilitation of dams and irrigation schemes, there were new national strategies to ensure food security. "Rehabilitating dams, irrigation schemes and reviving the cattle herd remains a government priority in Matabeleland South. The developments will be done in line with a national plan for the revitalisation of local food security initiatives, in the form of community-owned irrigation schemes and water resources. The cattle restocking exercise will get funding very soon," Made said. "As the country's prime cattle producer, Matabeleland South will get the biggest share of that allocation," the minister promised. Made explained that the cattle restocking exercise had been hampered by a lack of funds and persistent outbreaks of foot-and-mouth and tick-borne diseases. Since last year the country has been unable to provide regular dipping services to communal cattle farmers because of a shortage of dipping chemicals. Renson Gasela, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change shadow minister for agriculture, noted that "cattle play a leading role in the local economy of the province". "Besides rearing for sale, subsistence farmers use cattle for draught power during the farming season. So the death of livestock in such large numbers over the past four years has left the people even more vulnerable to famine, even when there are good rains, because they have no draught power [for ploughing]," said Gasela.