Quarterly Bulletin

I write to augment Miniva Chibuye’s article in the JCTR Bulletin No. 74 of the Fourth Quarter, 2007. It is very true that the right to food is the most basic of human rights, as food is the most fundamental need for human survival. Safe drinking water could be added to this need. But to have access to this right means that food must be produced by someone.

It is equally indisputable that no able-bodied adult person owes anyone, government inclusive, a living if we were to agree   and we ought to, with St. Paul’s exhortation that “if anyone is unwilling to work, neither should that one eat…such people we instruct and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to work quietly and eat their own food” (2 Thes 3, 10-12). We may also have no choice but agree with God himself as said in Genesis 2, 15 “The Lord God then took the man and settled him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate and care for it”. Christ fulfilled this mandate as the carpenter’s son of Nazareth and helped Joseph to raise money for a living – to buy food and other human necessities.

So, much as we all have the right to food, God also gives us the duty to produce that food or earn it through sweat as it will normally not fall from heaven as manna did to feed the Israelites in the desert during their sojourn to the  promised   land   where   they were to find abundance of milk and honey.

In one way or another we have to work for food either directly through its production (agriculture-cultivating the land) or through joining the chief carpenter at Nazareth in order to find money to buy food. When we join the carpenter’s son whose mother was Mary, our work becomes sacred and enhances our human dignity.

Why should we talk about the right to food and hunger in Zambia today, forty four years off the colonial yoke? And what warrants reminding the nation about the right to food? Why should there be inadequacy of food in our country let alone poverty in the midst of abundant human and God-given natural resources, not to mention good soils fit enough for all types of crops to support our lives?

To attempt to answer the above pertinent questions, I shall not address the natural disasters that no human person or government has control over. The droughts and floods are beyond human capacity to control. They are acts of God. It appears to me that we Zambians have directly or indirectly failed ourselves in preventing hunger and poverty in our country. Join me in reflecting on the following points.

Work is not a curse from God. If it were, then Christ was also punished by working as a carpenter. By working at a carpentry bench with Joseph at Nazareth, Christ blessed human labour as an honorable and uplifting occupation for humanity.

OUR GARDEN OF EDEN

Zambia and any other piece of land is our Garden of Eden not Getsemane where Christ sweated blood due to the hardships he was going to be subjected to for the salvation of humanity. From the Zambian soil which we must cultivate and produce a large diversity of crops lies food security to feed ourselves. From the small pieces of it, we can till and produce tonnes of vegetables if every household managed just a few beds in the backyard. We need not go to the market everyday to buy vegetables for household consumption.

SCHOOL CURRICULUM

School children must be taught how to hold a hoe while still in school to produce some food, no matter how little it could be so long as they cultivate the skill of tilling to produce some food. So manual work using garden tools should be incorporated in the school timetable and curriculum.

After all, our children will be adults of tomorrow who will survive on their own when their parents become too old to work or cross over to the netherworld.  Sharing my own experience, I remember when I was in school from Sub A (Grade 1) to Upper Primary Level, manual work included working in the school garden as part of the curriculum.

This prepared us to face the real world of self-survival when one finished or dropped out of school. White collar jobs were envied but not all of us would be absorbed in that category of life. So if you did not access the white collar job, that was not the end of the world.

We were mentally or psychologically prepared to take any job available, e.g., working as a miner without feeling ashamed of it. What mattered was to find a job for a living of self and the family, which included the extended family. As a result, some of us feel very uncomfortable if we cannot find a piece of land to till in backyard of our residence.

FOOD FOR WORK

Because of the social setbacks, not all citizens will find a piece of land to cultivate and produce their own food. Therefore, food for work programmes should be encouraged by those with means to provide the food for this purpose. The  advantage of this is two-fold: the workers will not go hungry and normally the work is community-based for community development like mending township roads.

The world, as Christ said, will always have the poor who need other people’s help and the judgement on the last day will partly be based on how well we treated them (poor) in their various degrees of material poverty After all even the white collar job is food for work.

FOOD SECURITY

Much as we may condemn colonialism in its many aspects, our current democracy will not beat the colonial way of food security. The District Commissioner (DC) ensured that every household had enough food throughout the twelve months of the year. The DC in conjunction with chiefs visited all the villages in his district twice a year to collect poll tax, take population census and inspect fields of cassava, houses and latrines. Any villager, including the village headman, who did not have a field of cassava or a clean house and a pit latrine was fined.

Because of this inspection, the village headman allocated a piece of land to each household around the village. After the rains, the chief sent messengers to go and help village headmen to allocate land for growing local staple food like finger millet.

The inspections and fines seemed cruel but every household had enough food to eat, unless by an act of God like in 1949/50 when there was general famine due to prolonged drought for two consecutive years. Incidentally, all villages in the colonial era were neatly inter-connected with hand constructed feeder roads. These roads are now a thing of the past and are overgrown with trees and shrubs – great pity.

The Colonial Government established schemes for those indigenous people who were willing to undertake farming of various crops. They were given a tract of land equally sub-divided among the peasant farmers. These were given a soft loan in the form of an ox-drawn plough, two oxen, one bull and two dairy cows. Windlass were sunk for safe drinking water along the farm blocks.

Unfortunately, these schemes vanished into the air soon after obtaining our independence. It is heartening to learn that our government has thought of opening up some areas in the country for such agricultural schemes.

ENHANCING FOOD SECURITY

In Zambia decisions on matters like food security revolve around the political will of the government. So government is the first to re-initiate the good things the colonial government had done for us.

One of the priorities on the DCs and MPs agenda should be to ensure food security in their districts and constituencies as the colonialists did. It can be done even today once the political will is there and is instilled at all levels of governance.

SCHOOL DROPOUTS

There are hordes of school drop-outs at Grades 7, 9 and 12 who are potential agents of food security. All we need is the political will to entice them with attractive incentives for them to get engaged in farm block schemes. These schemes should be established mostly in rural areas to avoid unnecessary rural- drifting to urban areas where there is scarcity of employment. Urbanisation is the worst enemy of food security. Commercial farmers will only play the supplementary role in food security.

DEFENCE FORCE AND PRISONERS

While Zambia is enjoying peace, defence forces can do a lot in food security. Zambia National Service Airport farm is a living witness to food security. It is equally a national scandal to hear of starvation in prisons when prisoners can produce a lot of food for themselves and the nation. The Mwembeshi Open Prison Forum is another living example. Again all depends on the political will to put policies into play.

One can ask this question; are Zambians living in game management areas, part of tourist attraction? These are human beings  who have the human right to food. People in game management areas produce food for themselves but the animals they are forbidden to kill, eat up their crops. Can’t the government relocate these people to places where their food for self-sustenance will be safe once grown?

RURAL DEVELOPMENT

The rural population will not be tempted to drift to towns if essential social and economic amenities are provided in the countryside. We are talking of clinics, hospitals, both primary and secondary and not simply basic schools, electricity and industries.

Provision of these will automatically create a conducive environment to encourage local people to produce enough food for themselves and the workers in the institutions. And with good road networkS their produce will easily reach the market to feed more people.

Nutritious food does not mean three mealS as provided by the hotel industry. On average we are talking of a balanced diet even though simple. In this regard Sylvia Professional Catering Services have proved to the nation that our staple foods can be used to provide the necessary nutrients that our bodies need.

Again the government can take advantage of  this science and sell it to rural areas through social clubs, especially those involving women who are our traditional or cultural cooks.

TOWN PLANNING

How can town planning affect food security? Willy-nilly town planners have negatively contributed to food insecurity in urban areas. Residents of Kabulonga, Northmead, Long Acres and the like, will praise the planners for being so generous in land space given to them. But the rest of the dwellers in high density areas will curse them for being too economical and mean in land allocation. The residents who need some land for backyard vegetable production have been denied the right to soil to till for a living. These are automatically forced to buy vegetables when they could produce their own and save money for other essential commodities.

Emmanuel Chikopela
CCJP - Chelstone
Lusaka