Development of agricultural cooperatives in Zimbabwe

In Africa, cooperatives initially served colonial interest. African cooperatives were not bonafide cooperatives because many lacked democratic member control; hence, they did not respect many of the cooperative values and principles. In this section, I follow the development of the cooperative movement in Zimbabwe and try to understand how it fared against various challenges along its growth trajectory.

5.3.1 Pre-independence cooperative movement

Cooperation is part of society and can be said to have existed within the concepts of ubuntu¹⁸ which formed the basis of the socio-economic organisation of the pre-colonial Zimbabwe (Samkange, 1980). However, ‘formal movements’ as they are known today began in the colonial era to support white-settler commercial farmers (LSCFs) and tackle output marketing and input supply issues for white farmers. In Zimbabwe, the first cooperatives were formally registered in the aftermath of the Cooperative Agricultural Act of 1909 which formalized white-settler farmer’s cooperatives. This Act was based on the Ceylon Cooperative Ordinance of 1922, which was in turn modelled around the British Indian Pattern of Cooperation of 1904 (remodelled in 1912 and 1946). These were primarily for LSCFs that were white-owned and dominated.

In addition to the discriminatory dual markets in grain and livestock markets between whites and black agriculture in 1950s, the settler government decided to intensify their control of the black agrarian sector by encouraging formation of cooperatives (Muir-Leresche & Muchopa, 2006; Masters, 1993; Weiner, 1988). The Agricultural Cooperative Act of 1956

18 The concept of ubuntu recognises the equality of a human disregard of the strength of kith and kinship.

Ubuntu (unhu in Shona usually used in the axiom 'munhu munhu nekuda kwevanhu', which means a person is only human if they recognize the humanity of others) has three broad values i) to recognize others as human beings ii) human life supersedes all material things such as wealth iii) all leaders hold power at the will of the people (Samkange 1980).

163 | P a g e institutionalized this move under the Cooperative Societies Act (chapter 193) on 15th October in the African purchase lands of Mashonaland West Province, Chitombogwizi area (Musininga, 1988). This came as a recommendation by the African Production and Trade commission which had been previously set up in 1944. The Act sought to i) organize bulk purchases of farm inputs ii) to provide marketing options for the surplus production that peasants were producing iii) to organize transport for the members and reduce transaction cost. The Agricultural Service Cooperative oversaw these activities. Unfortunately, just like many economic stakeholders, cooperatives were also affected by the geopolitical and economic shocks that hit the globe, such as the great depression, the world wars and the liberalization of the markets. The sanctions on Rhodesia of 1963, the liberation war and the economic adjustment programs had its toll on the system.

Initially, the cooperative movement was so successful that provincial cooperatives had to be formed to provide centralized services to the primary cooperatives. The Agricultural Cooperative Act of 1956 was administered in the Ministry of Cooperative, Community Development and Women’s Affairs. This model meant that the government would be involved in the guiding of cooperative activities as an advisor by offering extension, help craft by-laws, and teach cooperative principles to the developing societies. Theoretically, the British-Indian model envisaged limited state control in the cooperative movement as it grew bigger and became self-governing. However, the experience in subsequent colonial state legislative enactments substantially increased the power of the Registrar of Cooperatives. The government chose an officer who ran and managed all cooperatives businesses and performed most of the technical services and activities required by the cooperatives (World Bank, 1989, p. 5). This was maintained up to 1980.

5.3.2 Post-independence cooperative movement

After attaining independence, the state officially followed socialist policies (a mix of state intervention and market-heterodox policies in practice) and hence turned to cooperatives as a rural development model. This was evidenced by i) creation of cooperative-friendly legislature, ii) preparation of a cooperative policy paper in 1983 which detailed long term plans for cooperatives, iii) increasing the support and the staff to supervise cooperative development (though not sufficient), iv) establishment of the Ministry of Cooperatives (which survived for only a year) (World Bank, 1989). In 1980, given that the government had put hope on the cooperative movement to help in rural development, the cooperative was given several vital roles (such as input distribution, organize bulk purchases of outputs, transportation). It started

164 | P a g e the establishment of a network of depots across the remote areas to make supply and purchase of small-scale produce easier (Bratton, 1987, p. 194). The movement was significantly under-resourced, and the staff had little technical training; thus, eventually, it proved too much to handle for the ministry and the cooperative movement because there was not much financial support and institutional infrastructure to support it. Some of the cooperatives (about 40%) died soon after because the state did not provide enough resources for them to thrive. There were approximately 343 registered agricultural service cooperatives for the 70,000 households, and by 1987, this number had grown to 642 covering 125,000 households (World Bank, 1989, p.

5). It is not the establishment of cooperatives that determines success, but it is their management and the ability to produce in a sustainably. Furthermore, the government and the cooperative movement itself knew that the biggest problem that they had was the agricultural pricing mechanism, marketing constraints and input supplying (World Bank, 1989, p. 1). The government was seeking to circumvent these problems using the cooperative model.

The cooperatives that were most popular in this era were the agricultural service cooperative, they were marketing and supply cooperatives, but because they carried many functions other than marketing and supply, they were better to be referred to as agricultural service cooperatives. The biggest problem of the cooperative movement during this period was that it did not have enough trained staff, no storage and transportation warehouses and had no robust management systems. Additionally, other players who wanted to benefit from the agricultural markets influenced the success of these cooperatives, including the government itself. Thus, private companies that supplied the same market presented competition while the expansion of the GMB also had its negative effect. This was government policy inconsistency since it was both promoting cooperatives and at the same time competing with agricultural cooperatives in purchasing grains. It set up several grain collection points and thus taking over the role of the cooperatives.

Establishment of collectives

The collectives gained traction in the state policies because the government was following a socialist socio-economic production model following the likes of China, Russia and Tanzania.

However, the government did not abandon other conventional types of cooperatives. The prescribed role that the government was supposed to play has not changed even in the current cooperative societies act (World Bank, 1989, p. 4; Makochekamwa, 2015). At the peak of the government control, just as in China, collectives/communes (model B) were formed under the

165 | P a g e land resettlement program. These were developed along the lines of the cooperative model, but the most significant difference was that the unit of production was not the individual within the cooperative, but it was the cooperative itself. Such is the nature of the collectives, and it is this nature that renders collectives difficult to maintain and highly unstable.

Table 5.2: Growth of agricultural service and collective cooperatives 1956-1987

Source: (World Bank, 1989)

Most of the beneficiaries of the program were the war veterans who formed themselves into groups and then applied for land. About 1100 collectives were formed between 1984 and 1987 and consisted of about 35000 members. However, the bulk of them were never registered and hence eventually did not get land. The number that managed to get registered amounted to 312 (with 13000 members) to which only 93 managed to receive land (5000 members) (World Bank, 1989, p. 6) (Table 5.2). Again, the WB argues that the reason why these failed also was because they were not built and supported (financially) to hold the overwhelming number of people or members that it eventually attracted. And also, because the state had too much power and control in their management.

A recent study discovered that some of the cooperatives that were created during this time are still in existence and that some increases were recorded for collectives (312 in 1989 to 400 worker and producer collectives in 2015). The collective membership had increased to approximately 18000 from 13000 in 1989, and most of the members were women (Makochekamwa, 2015, p. 21). The collectives are currently organised under the Organisation of Collective Cooperatives in Zimbabwe (OCCZIM). Although support for the cooperatives and the number of trained staff was limited, the cooperatives grew in the first decade of gaining independence. The 70,000 members accounted for 9.8% of the small-scale farmers in 1980,

1956 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1987 Agric

service coops

2 21 169 283 310 343 642

Farming collectives

- - - - - 1 312

Other non-agric coops

- 3 7 18 30 32 848

Totals 2 24 176 301 340 376 1802

166 | P a g e and this rose to 135,000 total cooperatives and collectives by 1987 (19.1% of the small-scale producers). This represented more than 100% increase in cooperatives in this decade.