Here at home the Cotton Season has just come and gone; leaving not even one particularly keen on another season! It has been tears everywhere. Tears of anger and, of course, crocodile tears among Traditional Speciation Wisdom [TSW] keepers: those ‘we-told-you-so’ villagers that are somehow always right even with the benefit of hindsight!
Whatever is happening in the wider economy—disappearing forex and fuel shortage—in our villages we know that unless something is done quickly—because the rains are fast approaching—this season could spell yet another doom year for the simple maize harvest and worst for the vaunted "White Gold" Revolution in Malawi. And what with the tobacco ‘gold’ firmly in the dustbins of our national hope.
So what went wrong last season?
First no one took the official responsibility—ahead of the cotton planting season—to announce the government and/ or official per-kilo price. In this new age of "compartmentalized ‘perfect market’ operations" one learns to trust rumors, conjecture and anything with a pointing finger, we instead watched the sudden and feverish activities of urban sharks. They arrived in our villages in cars that rocked to booming sound in their car boots. Noise intrusion everywhere in our usually 'quiet' villages. They "bought out" hectares of communal land. Chiefs made a killing; snatching pieces of land—even future graveyard sites!—and selling them to these urbanites.
They were here “to grow cotton”—word went round. Not to be outdone, village sojourns brought back reports that they had seen a cotton ginnery along the Zalewa Road! As smallholder producers, we realized, somewhere-somehow, a good price was in the offing. How else could cotton urban sharks—men with manicured fingernails—suddenly enter into such a sweaty agricultural business?
In turn, unprecedented havoc followed everywhere. First to suffer was the communal maize growing season. Our usual field labor did a Houdini. They would never work for us, they announced; showing crispy MK500 from their new urbanite bosses. With that also rocketed farm wages. Even a kachasu-drunkard now had to nerve to tell you off.
Similarly—‘smelling’ the contents of the elephantiac, wallet-filled buttocks of those urbanites—chiefs offered and sold off our very own ‘fertilizer coupons’! Word had it: the ‘townies’ would perform a miracle. They would apply fertilizer to cotton. It had never been heard of until now! Indeed, silly and wanting-to-get-rich-quick the urbanites took the coupons. Of course—in a round-about manner [a TSW will sell you anything in demand]—we eventually 'bought back' the unused fertilizer at “kam’phwanti” prices.
But, the crazies were still coming. Some clever urbanites—"to drive down labor cost to zero"—arrived armed with plastic bottles of technologically advanced "weed eradication" chemicals. Of course—where they eventually applied these 'weed killers'—the grass didn't die! It was because they had forgotten to bring along bottled water.
To save additional travel costs, they ordered: "Just use borehole water!'
But, our boreholes—dug during the ‘Multiparty Rule’—are shallow pits that are taking in more toilet waste than supplying safe drinking water. They are as salty as hell. We no longer need iodized salt around here. Indeed, nowadays, the quickest way to recognize your own clans-people and siblings is to check if they have developed two yellowed front teeth and/or are wearing a ring-wormed 'toga' on their heads!
The worst part, of course, was when the weed poison entered the food chain. A few of us died in the name of urban technology. The TSW quickly brought up the matter of ‘disappearing’ future graveyard sites while we dug graves for our prematurely departed.
Meanwhile certain cotton marketing sharks—mum as ever about the forward cotton price—charged an arm and a leg for their seed, spraying agents and kits. We received bills, bills, bills for their imported cotton seed that looked like "roasted maize".
"It's high quality! From Zimbabwe!" the urbanite seed sellers had boasted! Much of it did not even germinate. Eventually, we had to improvise—use raw cotton ginnery seed. Thus—with the first rains and bad seed—disaster was written all over the place.
Then, the good news arrived—albeit in a roundabout manner—the firmed price of cotton would be MK40:00 per kilo. "Bingu Himself had finally said so!". And so—to those of us born under Kamuzu's rule—this was a Presidential directive. It would never be contradicted by a living soul! Alas how backward we still are.
In the dark of the night cotton sharks produced handwritten notices: announcing the buying season. It would be a mere MK32:00 per kilogram. Daylight robbery!
Promptly, growers and TSW leaderships gathered. They decried the new offer—insisting to defy this and even go to 'see Bingu'. But signs were already everywhere. The presumed bumper maize season was not to be for everyone. The TSW blamed the 'weed killer' for 'chasing' insects and weavils into our maize fields.
Besides, whatever we had harvested still needed processing together with some protein-enriched relish to go with it. Naturally mind games became the norm. Decrying the "thieving" sharks by day, we sneaked a child—and a head load of cotton—to the nearest cotton buyer by twilight.
"Just ten kilos", we rationalized. "Yakuchigayo— Yandiwo!”
The net effect: this buying season has been a resounding failure. The urban sharks have been noticeable by their disappearing act: probably gone back to town to lick their wounds too!
At MK22:00 per kilo—last season—we sold our cotton in one lot. It wasn't much—but we had proudly pointed at some results of our sweat: a few iron sheet houses on the village horizon. But, this year: things are turning out to be kuthongo'lelana basi—dribs and drabs. And the money simply fritters away. The cement-floor jobs—in last year's iron sheet houses—are quickly being shelved.
Of course, there were some noticeable changes. For all his sweat, the man at the corner now has a red and white cell phone umbrella and table. In fact—for the umbrella man—it took some doing. Not that the public phone he got ever works: around here you need to climb a hill or tree to use the cell phone!
In the dark of the night—thanks to operating problems at the bus company in town—he traveled to a buyer—100 kilometers away—rumored to be taking the ‘gold’ at MK39:00 per kilo. Triumphantly and promptly, he returned the next day—[an overnight bus is always late in the evening but bang on time in the mornings]. He announced he had actually sold at MK42:00 per kilo! The "invisible hand of economics"! The stampede in that direction commenced and the late-running bus service made an unfair ‘killing’. But what is all this: daylight theft or stupidity of liberalization?
Meantime, we must find money for this year’s maize seed and fertilizer; because someone is already spreading the word around here that there will be even fewer ‘fertilizer coupons’ this year and the urban ‘thieves’ may just return to scoop them all!
E-e-i-sh! This cotton liberalization is a nightmare. It requires some surgical action. First it's creating havoc with communal land ownership. For a quick buck, village leaders are parceling away our land to absentee land owners. Signs are there: Hacienda Wars will soon be coming into our area. This is because the urbanites—even if they don’t return this year, they will still be hoping for another cotton price bonanza. Meantime, this will cause large chunks of land to lie furrow this year and not many TSWs are prepared to idly watch such waste of our traditional heritage.
Second is the need for an urgent return to ADMARC-ways. Give us a firm future-price before the rains and take the harvest off us in one-go.
"Bring back ADMARC" even the cynical TSW leadership argues. "Izi zothongo'leledwa chimanga chokhala chako zithe.”
Set up a Cotton Export Development Corporation [CEDC] in the next few weeks and you may, after all, just have the replacement of the doggone international tobacco trade!
While we feverishly work to sort out the "comments' problem, please feel free to contact the author at zivaiclaude@gmail.com
there is sense in this!
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