Wretched of the earth.

Panos London, in cooperation with Dateline Southern Africa, have just completed the most comprehensive report on the plight of Zimbabwe's 1m landless farm workers ever. The following article is the first in a series of extracts from that report, In Search of Hope for Zimbabwe's Farm Workers.

Lacking political representation and striped of the right to organise themselves as an interest group, Zimbabwe's farm workers have historically had no voice. Today, they remain a forgotten people, marginalised in the development goals of the country. This marginalisation has increased since the Government embarked on its economic structural adjustment programme (ESAP) in 1991.

A 1995 study by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trades Unions points out that deregulation of security of employment regulations under the World Bank/IMF sponsored economic reforms has indeed promoted exports, but has done little to attract job creating investment. It argues for a strategy beyond ESAP.

Until the 1990s, Zimbabwe's economy was centrally controlled and both pre- and post-colonial Governments intervened in the agricultural markets. The colonial Government provided land, credit, infrastructure, markets and a pool of guaranteed cheap labour to help cushion white farmers from the effects of world recessions, and to enable them to compete on international markets. After independence the new Government continued to intervene, in agricultural markets, this time mainly to strengthen the position of black communal farmers.

However, no matter how many loans and subsidies were given, Zimbabwe's terms of trade declined heavily. The fall in the value of primary agricultural commodities led to a shift in the pattern of production. Farmers shifted to crops with better international market prices, and as the number of commercial farms fell, those remaining mechanised.

But the Zimbabwean dollar continued to weaken, and farmers responded by shoring up their profits through paring down on permanent employment and employing more female piece workers. Between 1974 and 1984, 100,000 jobs were lost in agriculture. While 73% of the workforce in large scale farms were permanently employed in 1985, by 1994 only half were. Increased mechanisation may have improved labour productivity, but it also increased labour poverty.

Yet the weak Zimbabwe dollar has not been the only cause of low wages and unemployment. The liberalisation of markets under ESAP has meant a hike in the price of fertilizers and other inputs which were previously controlled or subsidised by the Government. Import liberalisation has increased the range of inputs available to farmers, but successive devaluations of the local dollar have increased their cost, particularly for farmers not in the export sector. In addition, a tight monetary policy has resulted in high interest rates, pegged substantially above the high rate of inflation by the Central Bank. This price-cost squeeze is passed on to farm workers.

Under-utilised labour

Indeed one of the greatest advantages of ESAP to commercial farmers has been a sharp rise in unemployment and the creation of a large pool of under-utilised labour. Employers can again hire and fire, almost at will, in the name of 'efficiency' and 'productivity', which are becoming key buzzwords. In the new competitive climate, labour unions have lost a lot of their previous influence with the Government, and workers have been subdued.

But what of the new sectors (and jobs) that ESAP has been supposed to create? Since the Government embarked on the reforms, various export incentives offered have increased the trend toward new agricultural exports. Horticulture is one example that has been going from strength to strength and is touted as an engine for the growth of employment. Yet the capital investment required to sustain it have reduced the benefits to the national economy from this growth industry.

What is more, wages are low as in any other sector, and although they are exposed to a number of dangerous chemicals, farm workers are not given adequate protective clothing.

"A few of the chemicals used by horticulturalists are carcinogenic, including some banned or restricted in their countries of origin," says the GAPWUZ labour union health and safety officer Mr Sammy Chaikosa. "Both labourers and farmers are largely ignorant of the laws pertaining to the use of hazardous chemicals, and many farmers are more intent on ploughing their profits into further expansion than enhancing safety."

Indeed, horticulture is billed to be a key area for production under the long awaited Export Processing Zones (EPZs) and one of the major attractions of EPZs to investors worldwide is the suspension of labour laws in the zones.

It is not easy to see immediately how the plight of farm workers can be alleviated, but at least there is a growing recognition that the present labour conditions are unsustainable in the long term interests of large scale commercial agriculture. One way farm workers will in future have their interests represented is through a new pressure group, Farm Workers Action Group, which held its first meeting on 15 December 1995. The group consists of NGO's, journalists, farm workers and trade unions, and aims to empower farm workers and draw the Government and other agencies' attention to their plight.