For a newly resettled farmer in Beitbridge West hard work and dedication are paying off after he put an initial 105 hectares of land under healthy crops, in the process creating jobs for his neighbours in a project where he has invested more than $500 000.
OWN CORRESPONDENT
Erasmus Marema’s story is more like the biblical “stone that the builder rejected becoming the head corner stone” after he braved a fight from hostile villagers who accused him of taking over their pastures.
They also accused him of blocking them from watering their cattle from the Zhovhe Dam.
“At times people do not understand what you mean until it is on the ground,” Marema said in an interview.
Last Saturday villagers, in their hundreds, swallowed their pride and feasted at the same farm they once rejected in a happy ending to the story.
Marema, who is also a successful businessman, flew his personal helicopter from his base in South Africa to unveil his work at his farm 80 kilometres west of Beitbridge near the large Zhovhe Dam.
In 2014, almost 14 years after fellow farmers were resettled, Marema who works in South Africa, accepted an offer of 16 square kilometres of the Shobi Block previously reserved as grazing land for Wards 6 to 12 villagers in Beitbridge.
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His arrival into the area was met with fierce hostility and even had ministerial interventions when villagers from Kwalu, Zezani, Machuchuta, Ndambe, Masera threatened to pull down the fence that demarcated his farm.
“This work is super,” was all Beitbridge district administrator Simon Muleya could say. “This is encouraged.”
Marema has, on the farm that has been left idle since its repossession by government in 1983, employed 40 permanent staff and 160 villagers on a part-time basis.
He also employs security guards and that has helped in reducing poaching in the wildlife-rich area.
He has put 45 hectares under maize, which is almost ready for harvesting and 60 ha is under sugar beans.
Apart from several other modern machinery that include bulldozers, planters, tractors, Marema has state-of-the-art centre pivot irrigation systems — the dream of every serious farmer — which have turned green the entire 105 hectares. His equipment was acquired without the help of government schemes.
“I am now asking for more land from you. I can use it and we benefit together,” Marema said when he addressed the hundreds of villagers who had thronged his farm for the field day function.
He narrated to the gathering of the early stages of his investment when he partnered villagers to clear the land with axes and hoes.
Local politicians, MPs for Beitbridge East and West Kembo Mohadi and Metrine Mudau respectively and Mohadi’s wife Tambudzani who is a Senator were among the crowd.
Across the Mzingwane River, a few kilometres from Marema’s Zhovhe Farm are a number of derelict farms belonging to Mohadi, his son and a few other resettled farmers who can only envy the late-comer’s work.
Government agricultural extension workers, Belief Mago and Thomas Muwani, who were part of the gathering shared the view that Beitbridge district, where up to 60 000 people were appealing for food aid, could easily be turned green if local farmers take a cue from Marema.
“We have this large dam and it can change the food fortunes of the district if farmers are serious and more areas are put under irrigation,” said Mago.
There are about five government-run irrigation schemes at Shashi, Chikwarakwara, Chabilli, Billi and Tongwe in Beitbridge whose performance was pathetic owing to lack of inputs although the same could improve food security in the district.
