SOIL-WATER conservation did not change with the advent of independence.

In the 1920s, conservation legislation was passed in Rhodesia to justify restrictions on natural resource use by Africans.

While conservation for white settlers entailed financial and other incentives, for the indigenous African it entailed coercion and punitive restrictions on use of these resources.

Environmental degradation was placed on the Africans’ ‘misuse’ of the environment.

This justified unequal restrictions on access to, and use of, resources.

As a result, the 1927 Water Act, the Native Reserves Forest Produce Act (NRFPA) and the Game and Fish Preservation Act were passed in 1929.

The Native Reserves Forest Produce Act banned tree cutting in the reserves for any other purpose except the ‘direct fulfillment of subsistence needs’.

In 1944, the Department of Native Agriculture was established to enforce “…conservation practices in native agriculture”.  

Failure to do so resulted in the arrest of ‘the offending farmer’.

In 1921, the appointment of an Irrigation Officer responsible for soil erosion resulted in settlers’ agricultural lands being contoured through the use of incentives.

These incentives were not extended to indigenous farmers.

Contour ridging in soil conservation practice has been promoted throughout the country.

However, due to the arid environment of the country, instead of using contour ridges to drain water from the field, water should be kept in the field.

Additionally, contour ridging is said to aid erosion in that it concentrates the movement of water in one area, facilitating the washing away of the soil.

There is evidence of local innovations that are proving useful.

For example, Nyagumbo (unpublished), reporting on a study in Chivi District says that “… a wide range of technologies were experimented on by farmers.  Some of the technologies originated from farmers … The membership of farmers in clubs carrying out soil and water conservation had increased by about 400 percent in three years. In field crops, these measures included tied ridges/furrows, mulching, rock outcrop water harvesting and infiltration pits and included water conservation measures such as sub-surface irrigation, inverted plastic bottles, composting and mulching in vegetable gardens.” 

Post-independence, the famed contour ridge continued to be promoted all over the country.

From 1929 onwards, a policy of centralisation was implemented in Rhodesia that involved the reorganisation of land use; separating blocks for arable and grazing land for a central linear village for the natives located on the watershed.

This was justified on the basis of reduced land allocation for settling more Africans.

Centralisation forced Africans to abandon their intensively managed wetland fields because the newly designated arable blocks were on drier, sandy and inherently infertile soils of the watersheds.

These wetlands became part of the grazing lands.

Additionally, homesteads were sited into what were called village lines. These villages were usually removed from water sources.

This increased the incidence of erosion due to the concentration of movements of people and animals along set roads and paths.

The modernisation of indigenous agriculture, which also witnessed the introduction of the plough and ill-conceived and authoritarian conservation measures, not only downplayed the importance of indigenous knowledge but exacerbated environmental problems.

For example, contouring worsened soil loss by concentrating runoff behind the ridges and, in the process, under-utilised a much needed resource.

The settler-celebrated contour ridge continued to be promoted throughout the country, despite the fact that research has shown that the best technology for a dry environment is one that concentrates water in the field and not one that drains water away from the field, such as with contour ridging.

This practice is unfortunate since rainfed crops account for over 90 percent of the arable area in Southern Africa, which includes Zimbabwe.

Today there is also more understanding of the science of rain-fed crop production; for example, the concept of green water. There are no agro-hydrological limitations to doubling on-farm staple food yields, even in drought prone environments, by producing more ‘crop per drop’ of rain.

This allows for the low production being experienced in Zimbabwe to be improved.

Furthermore, while these interventions are being packaged as ‘new’ technology, similar practices have been recorded (Soper, 2002).

The modernisation of smallholder agriculture has characterised intervention in both the colonial and post-colonial eras in Zimbabwe.

This has resulted in a culture of evaluating smallholder irrigation on the basis of the technical efficiency of water delivery from the source to the crops in the field.

In addition, the focus on scientific observations as the standard for all agricultural practices has over-shadowed indigenous methods of water management in irrigation.

Commercialisation was also one of the pillars of the modern drive.

If sustainable smallholder irrigation is to be realised there is a need to reflect on what exactly modernisation means and how it can be used to improve the livelihoods of the concerned communities.

The point of departure between the State and farmers seemed to have been the definition of ‘commercial’ farming or what constitutes it.

The State relied on scientific models of cropping programmes, like crop rotations, among others, and equated what was considered to be scientific farming with commercial farming.

However, farmers had no fixed philosophical position but looked for practical solutions that could improve their livelihoods.

Issues of crop intensification based on market principles, where there is, in reality, no market, presented problems for farmers. Farmers were, therefore, reluctant to follow all the advice offered by State agencies precisely because of different perceptions they held about risk compared to that of the former.

Irrigation development can be said to be a process of creating hydraulic property/hydro rights.

The co-owners usually unite in some kind of self-governing association with elected officers to define and enforce rules on the exercise of rights by members.

The agro-economic performance of smallholder irrigation schemes depend on a number of factors such as plot size, level of education of plotholders, access to markets and management structure

State intervention in smallholder irrigation development in Zimbabwe changed the concept and practices that allowed hydraulic property /hydro rights to thrive.

The result has been that smallholder irrigation schemes are characterised by lack of clarity of the farmer rights — be they individual or group rights.

This situation perhaps poses the greatest obstacle to the development of sustainable smallholder irrigation in Zimbabwe.

More importantly, no support was given to informal irrigation which used a mixture of indigenous and introduced technologies and techniques.

This sector, estimated to cover 20 000 hectares in the late 1990s was said to be more productive than the formal sector, according to IFAD (1997).

Dr Tony M. Monda BSc, DVM, is currently conducting veterinary epidemiology, agronomy and food security and agro-economic research in Zimbabwe.  E-mail: tonym.MONDA@gmail.com