1 Introduction

This chapter focuses on the acquisition and transmission of climate change ideas, knowledge, and perceptions in the Makonde District in Zimbabwe (see Map 2.1) between 2000 and 2015. It argues that knowledge of the climate in Makonde Shona society has been acquired and experienced through both formal and informal pathways, but especially the latter. The weather and climate are conceptualised and experienced mainly through agricultural practices; notions of the climate and agrarian life are two sides of the same coin. Climatic transformation is further understood and explained through cultural beliefs, ideas, folklore, and riddles concerning agrarian knowledge. Climate change perspectives are shaped by agrarian livelihood activities relating not only to crop and livestock production, but also to the attendant environmental ramifications arising from plant cultivation and animal husbandry—the two major pillars of the Makonde region’s economy. Climate change in Makonde is not just thought of in terms of the periodic acute and severe drought occurrences, but is generally conceptualised as a broader weather issue very much connected to rising temperatures, erratic or plentiful rains, wind patterns, the central role of ancestral spirits, and God (or Mwari). Since ideas about these concerns are mostly introduced informally to children from a very tender age, indigenous and scientific knowledge of the climate tends to be a mixture of teachings from parents and school teachers. Similar traditions of acquiring and transmitting climate knowledge also applied to white settler farmers in Makonde and Zimbabwe more generally. When Makonde people think and talk about the weather, they generally do so from both cultural and scientific perspectives. The different actors in the dissemination of climate change information are children, parents, teachers, the government, churches, religious leaders, and a few non-governmental organisations.

2 Inequalities in Zimbabwe’s Agricultural Sector

Zimbabwe endured ninety years of British colonial capitalism from 1890 to 1980. Since independence, much of the literature on agriculture in modern Zimbabwe has remained preoccupied with analyses of colonial injustices in the area of land rights, ownership, and distribution. Populist narratives by Moyo and Yeros¹ and Mamdani² maintain that colonially induced land inequality in Zimbabwe has been the biggest obstacle to development. Important as they are, such debates have been at the expense of equally topical questions regarding agricultural development that take environmental factors, including climate, into closer consideration. Socialist rhetoric from the Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (zanu–pf) during its 38 years in power has neglected the significance of customary and scientific knowledge of climate change. For example, the late ceremonial President of Zimbabwe, Canaan Banana, portrayed colonial and post-colonial capitalism as a Western evil that inculcated selfishness among Zimbabweans that distorted their traditional egalitarianism—perhaps an apology for wealth accumulation by black political elites like himself after independence.³ This explains why the structure of production and capitalist relations of production in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, money and banking, and foreign trade remained unaltered until 2000.⁴ Agriculture remained dualised between blacks and whites, and over seventy percent of the capital stock in the above sectors was foreign-owned.

To be sure, political and economic factors, both in the colonial and post-colonial eras, account for many of the problems that Zimbabwean agriculture currently faces. As Sachikonye observes, the ideological and material basis of law in capitalism in Zimbabwe remained a major battleground of farmer- and working-class struggles for emancipation.⁵ The new black bourgeoisie designed the law to enhance its efficacy as an instrument of control and regulation and for capital accumulation. Provisions of post-colonial agrarian and labour legislation, particularly those of the 1985 Labour Relations Act (lra), clearly demonstrated the alliance between the government and capital as well as their shared material and ideological preoccupations. The lra hamstrung farmworkers’ freedom to organise into viable trade unions, to participate in nationalist politics, and to undertake industrial action to back up their legitimate demands for improvements in working conditions. Draconian state bureaucratic powers of intervention in industrial relations and repressive labour legislation strangled agrarian, public, and private sector workers alike. Mazingi and Kamidza have shown how pseudo-socialism during the 1980s disguised capitalism, irrespective of the tangible gains in social service provision (including in housing, education, and health).⁶

The Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (esap) of the 1990s sponsored by the World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (imf) wiped out the social gains of the 1980s.⁷ The UN envoy Tibaijuka (2005) and the undp (2008) not only reported on these social losses, but also concluded that the violent state-sponsored operation Murambatsvina had widened inequalities. Indeed, Alexander,⁸ Johnson,⁹ Moore,¹⁰ and Campbell¹¹ not only attribute inequality in Zimbabwe to skewed land distribution, but also to protracted authoritarianism and governmental inefficiency. Helliker¹² disagrees and explains this inequality with reference to an extremely chaotic land reform process in 2000—a view dismissed by Scoones et al.¹³ However, Scoones and other scholars fail to acknowledge that fragile tropical environments prone to drought and severe climate change contribute immensely to economic difficulties and social inequality. New debates have emerged on the increasingly negative climatic and environmental impacts associated with capitalist agrarian and mining activities.¹⁴ Shortcomings in land reform are believed to have been reflected in natural resources destruction that ignored environmental ethics.¹⁵ Environmental concerns in agrarian societies provide salutary reminders of the interlocking relationships between capitalism, politics, production, property, poverty, conflict, and the environment.¹⁶

These studies provide critical context to understand the impact of extreme weather patterns that pose great challenges to food security in Zimbabwe’s agriculture-based economy and in a country with seventy percent (9.8 million) of its total population living in widely dispersed agrarian communities. At independence in 1980, Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector was dominated by 6,000 white and a few emergent black large-scale farmers affiliated to the Commercial Farmers’ Union (cfu). The Makonde branch of the cfu comprised a powerful rural bourgeoisie who controlled the region’s economy, led by wealthy landowners, including the Nicole Syndicate, which owned ten plantations, Little England, and Anglo-American tobacco estates. These titled large-scale commercial concerns had strong financial (collateral) ties with foreign-owned banks, such as Barclays or Standard Chartered, operating in Chinhoyi, Makonde District’s capital city. Makonde’s land elites in the cfu accumulated large profits from sales of beef, maize, wheat, sugar cane, tobacco, tea, cotton, horticulture, timber, and game products. They enriched themselves from the creation of farm wealth by exporting cash and food crop commodities to world capitalist markets, including in South Africa, Europe, and North America.¹⁷

White minority privileges and ostentatious lifestyles were made possible mainly because Makonde cfu employers exploited ultra-cheap illicit farmworkers, who were alienated not only from the fruits of their labour but also from the means of production. Farm wage earners have stood out as the most exploited class in post-colonial Zimbabwe. Both in the colonial and post-colonial periods, commercial farmworkers lived and worked in appalling conditions, performing arduous agricultural tasks for very long hours only to earn parsimonious wages. Farmworkers had little or no access to decent social services, such as housing, healthcare, education, running water, or electricity. Attitudes of commercial farmers died hard as they neglected workers’ rights as well as their material needs and, in extreme cases, even maltreated farm employees. The 1985 Labour Relations Act also discriminated against farmworkers in relation to wages, arbitration, and other rights.¹⁸

The above characterisation of white masters and black servants is important to understand how, at the time of independence, black and white elite farmers enjoyed more access to information about Makonde weather patterns. Their knowledge of climate change and environmental management in this tropical area had been passed down from earlier generations of farmers and was additionally acquired from agricultural colleges and schools within and outside Zimbabwe. The colonial state, meanwhile, had been pivotal in facilitating climatic knowledge among white farmers. This came as no surprise, because the majority of parliamentarians in the colonial parliament were cfu members. The cfu was very influential in pushing the state to provide farmers with climatic and agricultural knowledge. Over fifty percent of white farmers had a basic weather station on their properties.¹⁹ From the 1980s, a typical weather station in Makonde had a rain gauge for measuring liquid precipitation, a thermometer for measuring air temperature, a barometer for atmospheric pressure, a hygrometer for humidity, an anemometer for wind speed, and a pyranometer for solar radiation. Richer farmers had sensors for identifying falling precipitation, a disdrometer for measuring drop-size distribution, a transmissometer for visibility, and a ceilometer to determine the height of the cloud ceiling.²⁰ A few farmers had acquired the scientific knowledge and the means to undertake cloud seeding to induce artificial rains. Their ideas of drought were not only passed down generations, but small farm archives and libraries contained farm histories and literature regarding the perils of deforestation, soil erosion, drought, desertification, and economic ruin suffered by previous farmers.²¹ This body of knowledge was hugely important in informing farmers of lessons learnt from the past. Farmers not only worked closely with the centralised meteorological and weather observatory centres in Harare, but most importantly attended seminars, workshops, and conferences to share ideas and knowledge about the climate with neighbours especially their struggling white counterparts throughout the country. Other ideas exchanged at such fora included desirable sustainable agricultural practices for soil conservation measures, such as wind breaks, contour ridges, crop rotation, and the application of organic fertilisers. Overall, their advantage in terms of their knowledge of climate, farming, market, and labour gave cfu farmers a big head start over their black competitors in less productive areas of Zimbabwe.²²

These inequalities in terms of environmental knowledge are mirrored in those pertaining to labour and land. The existing scholarly literature on Zimbabwe already provides nuanced understandings of the glaring inequalities that remain as a consequence of prolonged British imperialism in the country. The 1992 Land Acquisition Act (laa) had given the state the power to conduct compulsory purchase, though landowners retained the right to challenge the price set and to receive prompt compensation.²³ Such an arrangement did not satisfy the majority of landless rural dwellers in Zimbabwe. Indeed, social realities in Zimbabwe continued to reflect the late-colonial period, with 8,000 white farmers and commercial institutions owning 15.5 million hectares of prime land, or 39 per cent of the total land in the country, while 4.5 million black farmers in communal and resettlement areas eked out a living on 16.4 million hectares of mostly unproductive land, to which they had been confined by ninety years of oppressive colonial rule.²⁴ Land inequality is the key explanation for the observable pent-up resource nationalism that arose from 2000 onwards, in which the zanu pf government legislated against agrarian capitalism amending the laa four times leading to land nationalisation.

There are various terms used to describe the coercive takeover of land in Zimbabwe that began in 2000. Terms applied by different stakeholders include occupation, land squatting, land invasions, trespassing, land demonstrations, and land grabbing, the different terms reflecting varying views and ideological standpoints. In the process, large-scale commercial farms were taken over, being held by the state either directly or through a state entity under a title deed (in which case it was freehold state land). The Fast Track Land Resettlement Programme (ftlrp) meant that 6,250 of the approximately 8,000 commercial farms that existed before 2000 were acquired from about 4,500 owners.²⁵ In 2005 the government passed an amendment to the laa declaring all agricultural land to be state land. Together, approximately 100,000 black large-scale farmers received 2.5 million hectares, and close to 500,000 smallholders received 4.5 million hectares, including farmers in Makonde.²⁶

Land resettlement was generally structured into subsistence and commercial farms, or Model A1 and Model A2, respectively. Model A1 was defined by government as the decongestion model for the majority of landless people. Beneficiaries have access to the following average allocations: agro-ecological region (aer) i: one to twelve hectares; AER IIa: 15 hectares; AER IIb: twenty hectares; aer iii: thirty hectares; aer iv: fifty hectares; aer v: seventy hectares. Each household is allocated three hectares for arable land, with the rest being for grazing and other forest requirements, including timber, firewood, and water. Settlers are provided with basic social services through administrative and social management systems. In this model, twenty per cent of all resettlement land is reserved for war veterans, namely former combatants in the liberation war.²⁷ The A2 model is administered under the Agricultural Land Settlement Act (Chapter 20:01) and is meant to increase the participation of black farmers in commercial farming through the provision of easier access to land and infrastructure on a full cost-recovery basis. The land is issued on a 99-year lease with the option to purchase.²⁸ However, agricultural endeavours by blacks are constrained by severe undercapitalisation due to their lack of financial inclusion in government land resettlement schemes. The buzzwords among most Makonde farmers concern the lack of inputs, among others, especially seed, fertiliser, and draught power. Moreover, hiring farmworkers is beyond the reach of many Makonde farmers. Congestion by overpopulation and overstocking, particularly in Makonde’s communal areas, demonstrate the glaring economic inequalities between resettled and peasant farmers in the region, a demographic overload generally leading to ecological collapse on peasant farms and an increase in inequalities among farming households. Such influences have pushed government to enact the 2002 Environment Management Act (ema) and the 2007 Indigenous Economic Empowerment Act (ieea).²⁹ The ema sought to manage and control an ecological crisis hitherto unknown in Zimbabwe, while the ieea stipulated that foreign-owned companies worth over half a million dollars should cede 51 per cent of their shares to indigenous people.³⁰

In contrast to material disparities, very little is known about the imbalance between blacks and whites in relation to their knowledge about weather and climate, knowledge that is essential not only for the 600,000 resettled farmers but also for communal peasants in rural Zimbabwe. Communal and resettled farmers, unlike white farmers, have been excluded from gaining formal climatic knowledge in schools, colleges, and universities. Blatant racial discrimination forced black farmers to rely on traditional ways of reading and understanding climate change. Mothers and fathers but especially grandparents were repositories of climatic and environmental knowledge. After independence, formal education in agriculture and climate was available to secondary school pupils but with a very weak curriculum in the area of climate and climate change. The status quo did not change at the tertiary level, where formal education still emphasised the learning of agricultural knowledge and practices more than understandings about the climate. Makonde farmers receive little knowledge about the climate from governmental agricultural extension services. Teaching farmers about the climate and climate change has never been government priority since independence.³¹

To fill this void, Makonde farmers generally draw on traditional climate information for farming and planning purposes. They have no weather stations, and those who access climate change ideas and knowledge from meteorological and weather observation centres via radio and newspapers find this information neither adequate nor meaningful. Media presence in rural Makonde is also very thin, and most farmers do not have access to television. Mobile phones are different as almost every household has one, and this technology might revolutionise knowledge about the climate in the future in the same way as it has done with mobile banking. In addition, farmers generally mistrust meteorological information. Although Makonde farmers listen to climate forecasts, they show a preference for traditional knowledge systems as a control. When scientific climate forecasting deviates from traditional forecasts, the farmers’ inclination is towards indigenous information for reasons that it blends well with their culture, has been tried and tested over the years, and is transmitted in a language that they understand. There is often a striking similarity between indigenous and scientific climate indicators. Some indicators are the same in both systems, such as wind direction, clouds, and temperature. In addition, indigenous climate predictions are also based on plant and animal behaviour.³²

For example, farmers associate the heavy production of tree leaves with a good season, while high fruit production is a sign of a poor rainfall season. The reasoning behind this observation is that high fruit production implies that people will subsist on fruits for lack of alternative foods. The production of white flowers by a tree species known as mukuu signals a dry season, while flower production on the upper branches of the mukonde tree indicates a good rainy season. Other indigenous signs of an imminent drought include a heavy infestation of most tree species by caterpillars during springtime, late bearing and lack of figs from July to September by the mukute tree, delayed maturing of acacia trees in the valleys, and the drying off of chigamngacha fruit from September to early November.³³ These observations are discussed formally and informally at farmers’ meetings and social gatherings without government involvement.

One of the most important animal indicators is the behaviour of spiders. When spiders close their nests, an early onset of rain is expected because they do not like any moisture in their nests. When a lot of crickets are observed on the ground, a poor rainy season is expected. The movement of elephants is associated with the occurrence of rainfall because they need a lot of water. A stork flying at very high altitude is associated with a good season. Observing certain types of birds singing while facing downwards from the top of a tree is a good indicator that it is about to rain, while seeing many birds is a sign of heavy rain. The wind blowing from west to east, and from north to south is assumed to bring with it a lot of moisture and a good rainy season. The prevalence of a strong wind from east to west during the day and at night from July to early November is an indicator of drought.³⁴ Generally, droughts are interpreted both in religious and scientific terms, and often perceived as punishment for sins like murder. Drought is also understood as part and parcel of the extreme climate variability caused by global warming. Specifically, climate change has muddled the ability of farmers to plan farming operations with any certainty. If they plant early, the rains may vanish at a moment critical for plant growth, and when they delay their planting, the rains might still not be assured of coming. Either way, the farmers find themselves gathering regularly to discuss new ideas on how to cope with fast-changing weather patterns.³⁵

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Makonde District

Source: Wikipedia, “Districts of Zimbabwe,” last modified June 8, 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Districts_of_Zimbabwe

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3 Climate Change Perspectives in Makonde

Debates on climate change in Makonde District typically revolve around shifting seasons in relation to drought, temperature, and rainfall patterns. Five former cfu members in Makonde who lost their properties during the land reform process reveal how the white community of farmers understood and dealt with climate variability and unpredictability. Dukus, Foriti, Rivonia, Tiripano, and Vrede agree that differences in understanding and managing climate change existed among white farmers. Some had better resourced weather stations, while others had none and were left to rely on their neighbours for climate information. Regardless of the privileges they had been accorded in colonial and post-colonial times, mastering ideas and knowledge about changes in tropical climate remained a major challenge for a number of commercial farmers. In particular, two climate-related issues preoccupied both black and white elite farmers: unpredictable weather and recurring drought. Foriti and Vrede note that during the 1970s rainfall patterns in Zimbabwe were predictable, as rainfall invariably came in October. Droughts too, they claim, could be forecast with some level of accuracy, having occurred in five-year cycles within a small margin of error.³⁶

From the 1990s onwards, black and white Makonde farmers have been attending agricultural meetings, workshops, and conferences that confirmed many of their fears gained from their practical experience and knowledge that the rains had become more and more erratic and droughts more acute and frequent. Much of what farmers know about the climate has been learnt on their farms through parents, observations, recordings of weather elements, and knowledge shared by neighbours. However, huge gaps in information on climate change remained among Makonde farmers, a situation comparable to other farmers in Zimbabwe and throughout Africa. The lack of comprehensive climate information among Makonde farmers has meant that their farming operations before and after land reform have always been subject to uncertain planning and planting arrangements.³⁷ Not every elite black or white farmer was successful in balancing this agricultural and climatic mix for the purpose of maximum benefit in each farming season. While a few had become extremely wealthy through cultivation and animal husbandry, others became bankrupt due to climate change, drought, lack of inputs, and land reform. However, since commercial farmlands averaged 2,200 hectares, elite black and white farmers had been able over the years to practise relatively sustainable agriculture through crop and paddock rotation. Very low densities in human and livestock populations permitted such rotations—in sharp contrast to the demographic overload in peasant communal and resettlement areas.

There were parallel and competing structures for distributing pieces of land on properties seized from white Makonde farmers. District land committees included traditional authorities, village heads and chiefs, government administrative bodies, ministry of agriculture officials, local government councillors and civil servants, and government-leaning groups such as war veterans, the army, the police, the secret service, and zanu–pf supporters, all under the patronage of the zanu–pf party hierarchy. In Makonde, members of land committees prioritised land distribution, disregarding the implications of their behaviour and actions on climate change. For example, little attention was paid to the vandalism and burning of farm forests by ‘armed frontier crack teams’ spearheading commercial takeovers. Debates about the environmental impact of the widespread forest fires that were started to intimidate white landowners and on poaching activities during the violent farm confiscations were conspicuously absent. Traditional leaders, land committees, and government conservation officers from the ema clashed over natural resource exploitation and conservation. During and after land reform, the state gave space to customary beliefs and traditional authorities in the usage of natural resources in addition to state-run and more ‘scientific’ institutions.³⁸

Concerned with safeguarding natural resources, including land, forests, water, and wildlife, ema officials engage with the issue of environmental degradation when interacting with land reform farmers in Makonde. However, neither the ema nor any of the other actors involved in the land reform process—zanu–pf, war veterans, peasants, or civil servants—prioritise climate change as a topic of discourse. zanu–pf championed land redistribution for its own political survival and paid little, if any, attention to issues of climate change. For its part, the state emphasised food and cash crop production, but remarkably lacked robust measures and policies to mitigate the climatic impacts of farm takeovers, the clearing of land for farming, panning for minerals, and hunting. In addition, traditional leaders, land committees, farmers’ clubs, and government conservation officers do not offer any educational programmes to enlighten farmers on climate change. Government policy on land usage prioritises food self-sufficiency in periods of both plentiful rain and drought and aims at producing surpluses for export and foreign exchange earnings.³⁹ Generally, Makonde farmers, like their counterparts across Zimbabwe, have embraced these government policy measures in their plans and farm operations in order to feed themselves and earn essential income for their family’s needs. However, since farm offer letters, permits, and leases fail to provide security of tenure to farmers, landholders generally lack strong incentives and resources to invest in environmental conservation to mitigate climate change.

The ideas and knowledge on climate change of former commercial farmworkers have not been studied, although they have has been the backbone of commercial farming in Zimbabwe. Their knowledge of the weather does not appear to have been utilised by their employers. Much of what the farm employees knew about the weather would have been learnt through experience and would have been of little practical use to them as a landless group of people. Before and after land reform, they stood out as the most exploited class in post-colonial Zimbabwe. They were generally denied access to land because they were not only perceived as having voted against the 2000 draft constitution alongside their white employers, but were also discriminated against as mabhurandaya (read Blantyre)—‘aliens’, or descendants of the interwar migrant workers from Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia. According to Juma Phiri, the majority of households of former commercial farmworkers in Makonde did not benefit from land reform, managing to keep only their homesteads on repossessed farms. Besides diversifying their economic activity into crafts, trade, fishing, and basic construction, former commercial farmworkers also became casual farm labourers for the largely Shona land beneficiaries.⁴⁰

If understanding the climate appeared of little value to former commercial farmworkers, it was certainly important for the land reform farmers in Makonde, where agriculture continues to be the cornerstone of livelihoods. The Shona believe that humans are sons and daughters of the soil; they come from and return to the soil.⁴¹ Land is venerated through many different practices, including the inhaling of fine tobacco snuffed by elders while at the same time sprinkling some of it on the ground to beseech ancestral spirits to bless the community with adequate rains, preserve the soil in a good state, and protect the community from harm. Elders also pour specially brewed beer from rapoko and sorghum millets on the soil in prayers for rains, calm weather, and bumper harvests. Elders of land beneficiaries in Makonde continue to perform watered-down versions of similar customary practices before the clearing of woodlands for farming purposes. Similar customary practices and rituals are still performed before burials. Land reform and Western concepts of agriculture learnt in schools have often challenged these beliefs and customs as obsolete, and many farmers’ concerns appear to gravitate towards production rather than concerns about old traditions of environmental conservation. Nonetheless, Shona traditions in Makonde continue to be based on recognising the intimate bond between humans and their environment, according to which total realisation of the self is impossible without peaceful coexistence with the climate, soil, minerals, plants, and animals. In Makonde, society takes precedence over individuals because people are born and die while society lives on; hence there is a desire to preserve the basic tenets of customary practices with regards to climate and nature.⁴²

However, state policies appear to push farmers away from long-standing cultural attitudes and towards scientific understandings of the climate, soil, forests, and game without necessarily providing the means with which to acquire that knowledge besides the basics taught in school. At the peak of land reform from 2000 to 2005, the environment played second fiddle to politics and economics, with the state turning the other cheek to rampant environmental destruction by settled Makonde farmers. Through the ministry of agriculture, the state often encouraged the use of, and regularly supplied fertilisers and chemicals regardless of their short and long-term environmental consequences, such as causing acidity in soils.⁴³ Resettled Makonde farmers ‘mine’ the soil to produce export-oriented tobacco (fodya), maize (chibage), and cotton (donje). The government and many farmers generally neglect the notion of climatic responsibility and environmental ethics, that is, the impact of current practices on future generations of farmers.

Human-habitat interrelationships in Makonde are largely a consequence of strategic livelihood-centred agricultural activities in response to a controversial land resettlement process undertaken in a hostile macro-economic environment. Makonde land reform farmers came from very diverse backgrounds. While some had no prior experience in farming, the majority had been working as communal peasant cultivators and livestock herders before they migrated to Makonde in search of adequate and productive land. Others had been resident in communal areas in Makonde and would be advantaged in knowing Makonde weather patterns that they learnt from elders, in contrast to the newcomers, whose knowledge is limited to what they learnt in agriculture and geography lessons at school as well as what they hear from long-standing Makonde farmers. Climate change knowledge among A1 and A2 Makonde farmers draws from formal and informal discussions mixing folktales, customs, traditions, superstitions, and science. Much folklore and many tales exist in Makonde that transmit climate knowledge to children at home and in schools. From the tender age of five, children are taught about daily weather—cloud cover, wind, sun, moon, rain, cold and heat, and temperature. All these factors of weather are captured in one famous tale recited to children by grandparents, parents, relatives, and teachers.

In this ecological story, an animal kingdom resolved impacts of a serious drought, which had left the animals with neither food nor water. Putting aside their differences, they began to dig a well. Months passed as they toiled under the scorching heat, the cloudless skies, and the windy hot air. The animals also prayed to their god for the rains to come. Hare, who had refused to participate in the digging, appeared vindicated when the animals almost gave up. Frog asked to do his bit. There was a raucous laughter that pierced the entire valley as the animals did not think much would come out of Frog’s efforts. What miracle could frog perform? Zebra, however, asked that Frog be given a chance, tossing him down the dark pit. Frog burrowed into the soil and after what seemed an eternity a fountain of water burst from the large well pit. Frog became an instant hero. Hare, meanwhile, was barred from the pool and the pool was guarded each time the animals went foraging for food. On two occasions, however, Hare managed to fill his calabash with water and even bathed after tricking Monkey and Baboon by enticing them with honey. When Tortoise became guard, he hid under the water, tricking Hare into thinking that there was no sentinel. After filling his calabash with water, Hare proceeded with a bath when his leg was suddenly gripped from below. “It is a root you are holding!,” Hare tries to trick Tortoise but to no avail.⁴⁴ The animals came back and found Hare captive punishing him for lacking a communal spirit in the face of an adverse climate. The moral of this story is that humans have battled drought and climate change before and have managed to put their heads together to mitigate the effects of an adverse climate. As future farmers, children hereby learn lessons about the benefits of collaboration and the risks of deviant behaviour.

Riddles teach children about the climate. In reference to changing and shifting winter seasons, Makonde elders remark that “charova sei chando kukwidza hamba mumuti” [“the biting cold has compelled tortoise up the tree”]. Another saying states that “chamupupuri chine varoyi” [“the whirlwind carrying witches”], which refers to an observed increase in dust winds in Zimbabwe. Yet another riddle claims that “gehena harina moto,” or “hell has no fury,” in reference to acute droughts that farmers must not fear.⁴⁵ Climate change ideas informed by indigenous knowledge are also enshrined in spirit guardians as a means through which ritually controlled ecosystems function. In pre-colonial Makonde, the ownership, allocation, and control of land, game, forests, and water resources all fell within the spiritual realm. Several weather and woodland phenomena, trees, rocks, mountains, and pools were understood and made sacred, consumed and conserved by cultural and spiritual design. In modern Makonde, the epistemology of climate and climate change continues to be generally conceived from these spiritual and religious perspectives, in which an omnipotent God (Mwari) superintends over rainfall and drought.⁴⁶

Contemporary spirit mediums in Makonde are custodians of these traditions, leading and presiding over traditional rainmaking ceremonies known as mupwerera that take place either in sacred forests (rambotemwa) or on holy hills or mountains like Chirorodziva. Chiefs Chinhoyi and Makonde argue that these beliefs and customs have been heavily diluted and are less understood now due to influences from Western education that seek to explain the climate from a scientific perspective.⁴⁷ Mupwerera is supposed to be performed annually in times of both plentiful rain and drought as a way of cleansing society of its sins, such as murder and theft. Like many other cultivators, Tabitha Zengeni, a resettled farmer in Makonde, states that she learnt about the climate and customary cultivation strategies both from her elders and in secondary school. Indeed, while most farmers are thought to carry out unsustainable farming practices, there are nonetheless some cultivators who farm sustainably. Consequently, crop production on Zengeni’s farm and those of others who employ sustainable methods comprises a diverse range of grains and other plants, such as maize, sorghum, millets, rice, beans, groundnuts, melons, sweet canes, vegetables, cotton, tobacco, and a bit of discreet cannabis or dagga. Furthermore, sustainable farmers also leave important standing trees on their fields for shade, fruit, and the benefit of birdlife. When struck by lightning, large trees are thought to capture and destroy thunderbolt eggs harmful to people, crops, and livestock.⁴⁸

Makonde farmers do not usually evoke scientific concepts connected to climate change in their conversations; however, there are discourses that engage with the idea of environmental conservation, changing weather patterns, and harmful agricultural practices. For instance, while some practised cut-and-burn agriculture, Makonde farmers did not link these practices and the burning of vegetation generally to carbon emissions.⁴⁹ For many, environmental protection is a matter of mixed crop cultivation. Farmers Zengeni and Gatsi, for instance, argue that letting some of the land lie fallow was an age-old sustainable traditional agricultural technique that not only allowed fields to regenerate but also to regain their lost fertility.⁵⁰ Crop cultivation dominates most farmers’ lives, and some believe that ploughing damages or scars the face of the earth and pollutes the atmosphere through widespread forest fires, especially towards the summer months. Farmers who farm sustainably in Makonde argue that land is supposed to be rested by letting it lie fallow as restitution for the wounds inflicted on the soil.⁵¹

Makonde farmers also observe that, unlike in the 1970s when June was known to be the only cold month, since the 2000s winter has stretched from the end of May to August. August rains known as gukurahundi (“clean the chuff”) have disappeared. In addition, October was generally known with some measure of certainty to be the month that saw the onset of summer and the rains. Since the beginning of the 21st century, however, Makonde farmers lament decreases in rainfall across the summer season, but especially during the early and late parts of the season. Increased incidences of drought and late heavy downpours have become a common feature. Other notable changes in the climate include increased extreme temperatures (especially in summer), localised floods, and decreased/varying river flow.⁵² Farmers note that there are many insects and birds in Makonde whose presence and sounds are interpreted to signal extremely high temperatures (such as the edible nyenze insects) or heavy downpours (for example, the noisy horitoto birds). Makonde agricultural production processes, particularly plant growth, are sensitive to climatic conditions, especially for those farmers dependent upon rain-fed agriculture. The greatest challenge to government lies in creating more awareness among farmers on the impacts of climate change. This is because managing the environment sustainably becomes a tool for avoiding the excesses of climate change, notably through reducing forest fires that contribute to carbon emissions.⁵³

Some Makonde farmers appear to use formally acquired scientific information to determine the predictability, occurrence, and severity of drought. However, even for climate scientists, the prediction of drought is both complicated and unreliable. In Southern Africa more generally, cycles of drier years—which occur as a consequence of the El Niño effect, the large-scale warming of the equatorial eastern and central Pacific Ocean—are followed by successive seasons with opposite conditions. However, after two dry years in a recognised drought cycle, there is no guarantee that the third year will also be a drought year. Actual climate conditions in recent years have, to a large extent, not corresponded with the predicted scientific outcomes. Until the mid-1990s, the general practice of declaring drought was based on the actual occurrence of drought. The severe drought of the 1991−1992 season in Zimbabwe was thus only recognised officially as late as in January 1992, well into the agricultural season. The first time that drought was forecast at a very early stage on the basis of global interpretations of the effects of El Niño was in June 1997, when severe drought was predicted for the 1997−1998 season.⁵⁴ This led to action by governments in the Southern African Development Community (sadc) region towards information dissemination and the providing of planting advice to farmers. Recommendations to farmers ranged from the planting of drought-tolerant and early-maturing crop varieties to destocking.⁵⁵ Even with improvements in the reliability of climate forecasts, the occurrence of recurrent drought and related risks have to be accepted and integrated into land use systems that are sustainable under climate variability. The prospect of accelerated global warming, and associated regional changes in climate, reinforces the need for the consideration of the longer-term constraints that future climate may place on Makonde farmers. Makonde farmers’ clubs discuss and share knowledge on climate change and its implications for sustainable farming and livelihoods in the face of changes in natural vegetation, agriculture, range conditions, and water resources.⁵⁶

Besides concerns about climate change, drought, and their impacts, most Makonde farmers try to mitigate the problem of soil erosion through knowledge acquired both from their elders and from formal education. Soil erosion is understood as an outcome of not only deforestation but also of unsustainable agricultural methods. For example, Makonde farmers express the view that the destruction of vegetation exposes soil to the elements of rain and wind, which erodes the fertile topsoils essential for agricultural production. They also link deforestation to climate change, noting that the loss of vegetation cover is directly connected to extremes in temperature and desertification. These issues are expressed in environmental terms governing land use, linking conservation ideas to government officials and the connections those officers have to international discourses about trees, erosion, water supply, and climate change.

Agricultural officials believe Makonde farmers threaten forests, the soil, and water sources because their settlements and economic activities have spread out beyond the floodplain, the result of a hurried and unplanned land allocation programme implemented by non-experts. Official thinking and state intervention are concerned about the impact of cutting down vegetation near water sources such as rivers, streams, and wetlands. Agricultural officials argue that the clearance of bush and trees by farmers along river and stream banks increases the erosive powers of run-off water. However, soil erosion problems do not seem to concern other Makonde farmers and certain sections of the central government who believe that they are neither serious nor widespread enough to warrant attention.⁵⁷ Government intervention is constrained by a serious shortage of manpower and resources within the ministry of agriculture, responsible for various agricultural matters including educating farmers about the climate and climate change as well as forest, game, soil, and water conservation. There are no formal institutions and structures for inculcating climate knowledge among farmers. The Agricultural Extension Service, which used to provide such services to farmers before and after the 1980s, no longer has adequate funds nor sufficient personnel to visit farmers for educational purposes. According to Alois Mbedzi, a resettled farmer: “It is a very slow process teaching soil conservation to farmers as most of them are naturally conservative persons who, before spending any money, wish to see with their own eyes that the proposed remedy is a certain cure and, therefore, worthwhile.”⁵⁸ Soil conservation regulations appear unpopular, since the ema instructors try to enforce rules in arbitrary ways causing local resentment of conservation measures. The strict dismissal of indigenous knowledge and the policing function of ema officials like donor-funded natural resource management programmes, fail to build upon, or even acknowledge, local practices and knowledge.⁵⁹

The government has placed more emphasis on promoting food production to cut the food import bill as well as on raising the value of land. According to John Chipengo, during the first few years of land reform farmers took soil fertility for granted despite clear evidence of severe soil erosion continuing unabated on their farms. However, from 2010 many producers became aware of the impoverishment of their fields and reduced crop yields compelling them to use organic and artificial fertilisers in significant quantities due to the loss of soil fertility that had occurred mainly through soil erosion.⁶⁰ Poor crop husbandry practices, notably maize monoculture, exploitative cultivation methods, ploughing down slopes, and overcropping, have contributed to the environmental destruction that has been occurring on Makonde croplands. Simon Chamboko observes that the way soils were used until 2010 made little short-term economic sense, and that farmers lacked the willingness both to deal effectively with the problem of soil erosion and to concede the need for radical change in individual and collective attitudes towards natural resources. Jane Moyo also attributes rampant forest and soil destruction to ignorance caused by the “mining of the soil for profit.” In particular, the practice of perennially cultivating tobacco, maize, and cotton on the same fields causes soil exhaustion, which has been a major concern among agricultural officials, such as Onesmo Zishiri, Mashonaland West’s Director of Agriculture. A few Makonde farmers regard the subject of soil erosion as of more academic than practical importance. Others such as Chenai Chinhoyi are critical of monoculture agriculture. Chenai Chinhoyi observes that many streams and rivers in her area carry away fertile silt soils as a result of uninterrupted monocultural cultivation.⁶¹

In the Kenzamba, Hombwe, and Godzi areas of Makonde, farmers generally protect arable lands with contour ridges to guard against erosion. They also leave strips of unploughed land with vegetation to protect fields and keep wildlife like birds and bees. In the Chivende and Obva areas, ema officials have experienced resistance from farmers who cut down forests to create more farmland and fail to practise sustainable agriculture that protects the soil through contour ridges (see Figure 2.1). Partly, this is because some remember the coercive measures used by colonial officials in the implementation of forest and soil conservation measures. Soil erosion is seen by government as the major threat to agricultural productivity, prosperity, and farm income. For instance, among other farmers, Julius Mafunga in Obva has suffered a reduction in maize crop yields. Mafunga’s ten-year-old, thirty-acre farm in Chivende, which has no anti-erosion works, has become denuded in many parts. Having once produced twenty bags of maize per acre, that yield has since decreased to five per acre, while on certain plots the application of artificial fertilisers has had little impact.⁶² On the other hand, farmers practising soil conservation have seen their yields rise on a yearly basis. For example, Never Chambati in Kenzamba harvested thirty bags of maize per acre in 2014.⁶³

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Deforestation in the Obva area, Makonde; cutting down trees for crop fields and firewood

photograph © vimbai kwashirai

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Soil erosion removes nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and organic carbon. The wider implications of high rates of soil loss from predominantly tobacco-, maize-, and cotton-growing farms in Makonde are yet to be measured and appreciated. The loss of organic matter suggests that the natural fertility of soils in Makonde has been seriously undermined. The Makonde District is by no means an exception in this regard and appears to be representative of what has been happening nationwide. Quite clearly, neither the district nor the country can sustain such high levels of soil erosion indefinitely. Farmers experiencing high soil losses have been squeezed out of the farming business, caught between the imperatives of increasing production costs and the reality of decreasing yields. At the same time, the growing extent of land that is already seeing depreciating production is gradually threatening the viability of the agricultural industry, particularly as farmers encroach more and more upon fertile lands set aside for pasturage and forestry.

In communal areas in Makonde, farmers follow the communal land tenure system, which also gives rise to a number of environmental problems similar to those experienced in resettlement areas, including on grazing land. Livestock owners lack incentives to improve pasturelands, forests, and freeways because benefits accrue to the community rather than to the individual investor. The full cost of holding livestock in excess of the carrying capacity of the rangelands is borne by the community at large rather than the individual. Individual farmers have incentive to keep as much livestock as possible with limited direct costs in veterinary services. The community ultimately suffers the consequence of degraded grazing resources, the conversion of grazing and forests into residential and crop land, and the cutting down of trees for fuel without any replacements. As demand for food and living space increases due to human pressure, a corresponding encroachment occurs through the cultivation of marginal lands as well as the settlement of hilly or fragile terrain. In addition, the fragmentation of land units encourages land degradation and erosion. Generally, there is a lack of coordination in policing mechanisms that could sustainably oversee sound management of grazing and forestry resources. Regardless, communal land ownership remains popular because it allows the poor free access to land. However, it discriminates against women because of the patriarchal customary laws that govern it, but married women, divorcees, and widows are usually assured of pieces of land.⁶⁴

4 Conclusion

Climate change debates in Makonde and Zimbabwe do not preoccupy the lives of farmers, nor are they a priority area for government. Farmers and the government are more concerned about issues of agricultural productivity for the benefit of food security and foreign exchange earnings. As a result, they worry more about the loss of soil fertility than the effects of climate change, which they blame on industrial pollution. This does not suggest in any way that farmers and government do not agonise about climate variability as manifested in extremes of temperature, inadequate and erratic rains, as well as acute and more frequent drought. Ideas and knowledge about climate change are taught formally in school and informally in the home to equip young future farmers with knowledge about this important influence in agrarian society. There are no clear-cut or formal ways of gathering climate change information in Makonde. Climate knowledge is learnt from various sources like family and school and its applicability to agricultural planning and planting is also learnt along the way.