Agricultural Technical and Extension Services (AGRITEX) activity system

The other important thing is that, of recent there has been a deliberate attachment of the IMC to national politics (dominance of ZANU-PF). In essence, there has been a deliberate high political influence in defining the way the IMC members are chosen, how should they be politically aligned and resultantly, there has been high instability in the IMC itself, influencing and interacting with the broader farmer activity system. This has been detrimental to the collective activity and the partially shared object across the activity systems in the irrigation scheme. More deliberations on thus are found in the following sections and in the next chapter.

Nyanyadzi, as well as a flurry of measures aimed at controlling and synchronising the agricultural operations of a multitude of plot holders” (Bolding, 2004: 140). Notably, in 1947 the staff

at Nyanyadzi comprised one European Land Development Officer, one irrigation supervisor, two agricultural demonstrators, one building supervisor, one community demonstrator, and three senior instructors at the school of agriculture (ibid., 2004: 142).

Bolding claims that, “this heavy presence of the state (nine staffers) at Nyanyadzi (13) reflected the importance of irrigation, and Nyanyadzi scheme in particular, as object of state intervention ” (ibid., 2004:142). His claim was also shared by Interviewee FG1 who also claims that around 1942s “that’s when we started to grow crops… but the government was not much involved because Rev. Alvord was in charge… the government heavily intervened by employing more Extension workers. The government started employing Extension workers around 1947-48 but mostly 1947 that’s when the government became more intervening,”

The Agricultural Technical and Extension Services (AGRITEX) is a government department established just after independence (1980), its main mandate is to provide farmer education, training and extension services. The Extension workers’ activity system is presented in Figure 4.2,

Figure 4.2: AGRITEX management activity system Source: Author

It’s not a secret that the Extension workers’ activity system is composed mostly of the Extension officers and the Irrigation Supervisor and together they form the subjects. The Extension officers engage with the Extension systems which includes training course materials in the form of the Farmer Education Certificate which was run as early as the 1940s in the study area. They also used to work on demonstrations at Training centre plots for demonstrations with the farmers and now have resorted to onsite field demonstrations. The Extension workers have engaged the farmers in workshops, seminars and took advantage of field shows as a learning space. Lastly, the Extension

workers work in the framework of government contracts of work making them strictly civil servants and they are also guided by the irrigation’s constitution in their conduct with the farmers (rules). In essence, they are upheld as the highest custodians of Irrigation constitution by implementing some sections and enforcing some of the elements of the constitution. They also monitor and supervise fulfilment of the tenants of the constitution.

In exercising the above, the Extension workers are believed to fulfil their object that is to provide the farmers with farmer education and training and thereby, achieving an important outcome that is improved household food security and best agricultural practices in the Irrigation scheme. Their object is described to be close to the farmers’ activity system and they are said to have a partially shared object with the farmers that is around crop production and improved marketing to achieve household food security. Although the two neighbouring activity systems’ activities may differ and their mediation tools as well but, the desired outputs and objects are closely related. This makes the two activity systems inseparable or dependant on each other.

Over time their activity has been known to be shifting. In the past as the irrigation scheme was established the Extension officers were inseparable to Rev. Alvord’s plans in Nyanyadzi irrigation scheme. As posited by Bolding (2003: 150) “by the time Alvord embarked on the MuNyanyadzi (now known as Nyanyadzi) project, he and his team of demonstrators had gained seven years of experience in working with reluctant African cultivators and doubtful administrators.” The Extension workers then, were called by varying names including agricultural demonstrators, community demonstrators, senior instructors and demonstrator trainees, but in essence, they referred to what we now call Extension workers although I understand that their roles differed significantly depending on the title given but all together formed the extension work function.

According to Bolding (2003) the early extension work advocated for learning-by-doing. He argues that “in this case they were learning about the force and behaviour of the Nyanyadzi river, seeking to counter every move of the water by mobilising new allies (cement, reinforced weir, financial resources, labour force), thus expanding the network” (ibid., 2004: 148). However, Chambers (1969: 219) described early extension work by Alvord and his staff (Extension workers) by describing the articulation of the irrigation policy and the refinement of technologies of water

control through his extension workers as “… was not so much a result of a conscious strategy or 'natural sequence of activities', but rather a response to undesirable outcomes produced by the constituent elements of the network including the users.” In addition, Bolding (2003) also claimed that Alvord’s gradual increased management of the irrigation scheme was not by plan, but also in response to the local events.

He and his staff did so by realigning and re-ordering the social and material elements of the network, thus devising increasingly refined procedures for prescribing, monitoring and directing the behaviour of its critical elements, i.e., water, plot holders and crops. When the plot owners refused to repair the faltering infrastructure, water rents were instituted, in the process transforming Africans into plot holders in a government project. In response to opportunistic millet growing by plot holders Alvord devised the 1939 irrigation policy, further refining their obligations as full-time irrigators. One effect of this ongoing re- alignment was that the network became more distinctive. The Nyanyadzi water-network became a bounded entity, literally fenced off from its surrounding environment, forming a self-contained modern agricultural society that provided an alternative to the traditional African kin-based society (ibid., 2004: 150).

Bolding further claims that, in order to

effect this transformation, Alvord skilfully applied a number of translation strategies, overcoming resisting obstacles (trees, stingy Administrators, doubtful Engineers, reluctant lawyers) and enrolling new elements into the network (cash crops, European supervision, experiment station) (2004: 150).

One concept that was developed early in most of the irrigation schemes under Alvord was the demonstration concept. In his autobiography Alvord said upon his arrival at Mt Selinda mission farm in the 1920s he identified that the mission’s farm could not maintain because of the “wasteful, destructive agricultural practice of shifting tillage” (Alvord n.d. cited in Bolding, 2004: 41).

Hence, in November 1920 he started practicing improved methods of agriculture on the six-acre school plot. Four of the plots were under crop rotation and the other two on cattle manure fertilisation. When the people of Mt. Selinda saw the produce they said, “Mtakati, Uroyi and muti”

meaning it is the “magic of the whiteman.” Reflecting this experience in his autobiography from his own colonial and racially biased gaze Alvord said,

It was then that I made my prodigious discovery (...) that in spite of high qualifications and experience, a white man could not teach agriculture to the superstition steeped African who attributed high crop yields to "muti", witchcraft and favour of the ancestral spirits. I concluded that it was impossible to Christianise the Africans without, first of all intellectualising their agricultural practices, so filled with superstition, ignorance, witchcraft and worship of the unknown. I must create in them wants and desires which would automatically lift them out of the sea of superstition and fear, which engulfed them.

I made the discovery that the African must see things demonstrated on his own level, within his reach, by Demonstrators of his own black colour and kinky wool, and before we could successfully preach to him the Gospel of Christ, we must first preach to him the "Gospel of the Plow (Alvord n.d. cited in Bolding, 2003: 43).

Thus, it is through this colonial gaze that the demonstration method began. In June 1921, the first African Demonstrator was appointed at Mt Selinda mission. Another famous extension approach Alvord used was called “seeing is believing approach” in which he used an example of Mr Mvundhlana, an African farmer who was in Tjolotjo, who had taken up the advice of winter ploughing under the guidance of demonstrators in training in 1925 and reaped a bumper harvest, whereas his neighbour Mr Makothliso reaped nothing (Bolding, 2003: 48). Alvord always used this example to convince farmers and administrators to adopt his sustainable and better methods of farming. Another way was also through the “winners and losers concept” in which he conceived the idea of competition among the farmers. He believed after seeing a winner in the system the next farmer is compelled to copy and compete with the winner and this way the better methods of cultivation increase and spread among the African irrigators/farmers. It was also out of his courtesy that whenever a farmer harvested well under the demonstrator, Alvord himself would take his audience to the maize field, and went on to ask, “You can see with your own eyes what these mealies are, and you can touch them with your hands. Do you now believe it is possible to grow mealies like this”' (Alvord 1928, 42). This was a way to convince the farmers that demonstration system works and to convince the African farmers that farming has nothing to do with witchcraft or their superstitions. However, cautioning the ideology of demonstration as a method adopted in most irrigation schemes including Nyanyadzi and as was also developed into the Master Farmer programme, Darrel Plowes, the former Manicaland Provincial Agricultural Officer from 1956 to

1982, pointed out that,

you find a progressive individual and you concentrate your efforts on this individual. You get him up to a high standard. He will influence all the others. They learn from him. Say you got a ripple effect. Gradually knowledge spreads out to the rest of the community. But what Alvord didn't realise, and most other people didn't realise, and I certainly was amongst them to start with, was that in African society here things don't work that way. We time and again find a chap has been doing well, brought up to master farmer standard, been farming nicely for just a couple of years and suddenly relaxes. People couldn’t understand this (PC files, 2 July 1969).

Whereas in the European context the success of one person triggers the ripple effect which Plowes describes as “keeping up with the Joneses” in contrast having worked within African he discovered that progression of one farmer is associated with witchcraft and in a nutshell Plowes said,

I realised that the master farmer scheme was not going to be the full answer to getting everybody coming up. They do not keep up with the Jones's, they pull the Joneses back into their ranks. When we really appreciated that, that was when I was then trying to change our approach here and go for group activities. (...) I thought hell! What you got to be doing is to make everybody a Jones simultaneously. Get them all working together. (Interview with Plowes, 30 November 1996 cited in Bolding, 2004: 67).

Plowes’ idea was said to have been adopted from the film “Food or Famine” which was created by the Shell company and the idea was extensively used in extension work in the 1960s. This learning methodology was said to have been further developed into the formation of Master Farmer Clubs in 1967 which started in Masvingo province and later spread on to Manicaland in the early 1970s. Master Farmer Clubs were aimed at promoting farmer-to-farmer extension and allowed the numbers of master farmers to grow. They promoted the idea of group work and allowed for easy diffusion of innovations amongst homogenous segments of society and development of communities. By 1975 it was believed that there were 50 Master Farmers’ Clubs in Manicaland but with increased hostility the movement had a premature end (Plowes, 1980,198). Bolding (2003: 74) believed that the “upscaled and standardised master farmer training, field days, and agricultural shows” were all used to demonstrate and celebrate the effect of the master farmer

approach to learning. This shows the high emphasis on demonstration approaches in the teaching and learning of sustainable agriculture that was adopted and dominated in irrigation schemes, Nyanyadzi being one of them.

Interestingly, when Alvord incubated his demonstration methods into teaching and learning also known as “learning by doing,” later the “seeing is believing” approaches and lastly, the “winners and looser” approaches he conceptualised demonstration teaching in three ways. Alternative 1) A demonstration plot- where the demonstrator(s) work on a small area of land which he/they will

“retain and work as a demonstration farm or native garden, and on which will be established demonstration plots where he can illustrate the natives of the locality the proper methods of crop culture, and, as his time permits visit and advise other natives living in the area on better farming methods.” Alternative 2) Partnership- the demonstrator does not own any land but “select in his area a certain native willing to give a portion of his land to be worked by the demonstrator, who would work this land for 1 or 2 years alongside the ordinarily worked land of the resident native and would then pass on to another similarly selected native farmer elsewhere in the Reserve.”

Alternative 3) Agricultural Advisor- “locate the demonstrator in a reserve where he will merely go about as agricultural advisor, advising the various native farmers on better methods and showing them how to do the different operations properly, but not actually himself working any land as a demonstrator” (Alvorld n. d. cited in Bolding: 43).

Notably, in Nyanyadzi irrigation scheme the extension workers have wandered around the first and the third alternative to demonstration and these approaches to learning have yielded different but desirable results for both the irrigators and the extension workers although they had also varying challenges associated as well.

Extension work in the pre-colonial and post-colonial period was different for various reasons.

After independence in 1980 things changed. Poulton, Davies, Matshe, and Urey (2002) claim that after 1980 there was a strong motive to redirect extension services to the smallholder sector, but in the 1990s a considerable decline in the government expenditure on extension workers was noted.

Chisvo (2000), reveals that between 1994-95 the real per capita spending on agricultural support services (AGRITEX, Veterinary services and the research service DR & SS) was 26% lower than

the peak between 1990-91 (Jansen & Rukovo 1992). Up until now, attempts have been made to lower staffing levels in the AGRITEX resulting in reduced recurrent expenditures such as travel costs, training costs and this has reduced the effectiveness of the extension services. Bolding (2003) has also reported on high brain drain among the extension officers in the 1990s, because of their high involvement with donor work. Most extension workers were reported to have joined the leading consultancies and donors as field officers.

It was also noted above, that after independence there has been a high level of contestation over the management of the irrigation scheme. With the assistance of political figures, the IMC and the irrigation farmers managed to establish a different working system that is known for side-lining the AGRITEX authority (see Section 4.1.2). Despite the insurgencies in the early 1993s the government through the AGRITEX attempted to regain control of the irrigation scheme. A newly trained Agricultural Extension Officer (also known as the Irrigation Manager) was deployed at Nyanyadzi irrigation scheme. It is said the first two things he requested were, a) a class A evaporation pan to use for water scheduling and b) an official policy document in regard to the management of the irrigation scheme. But by that time both were non-existent, so he decided to draft his own policy together with his Nyanyadzi extension officers in two separate meetings (Bolding, 2004). Noted, in his first two meetings with the extension officer was that the farmers’

discipline has improved since independence, and secondly, the AGRITEX could not stick to the

“stick method”, which was used by the whites because they lacked support from the top political party officials. Hence, the following reforms were put in place, a) the extension workers had to work closely with the Block IMCs b) farmers were no longer allowed to visit the office unless they had clearance from their block extension officers c) a workable farmers' and manageable committee members were to be selected in order to curb disciplinary behaviours by the Block IMCs d) the IMC was barred from communicating directly to the Provincial Officers. One more thing, it was also noted that the IMC did not enforce bylaws itself, but rather sent the water bailiff, without providing proper backing. It was therefore decided that the Extension officers should be responsible for the follow-ups.

All in all, it seems that in Alvord’s success in turning the Nyanyadzi irrigation scheme into a bread basket, the Extension workers were instrumental in this achievement, but with time the same

results did not yield the same methods hence there has been constant changes in the object and motive of the object over the time. This historical understanding is important in understanding how the shift in the object and the expansion in the object influenced changes and modifications in the extension work activity. This dynamic shows how activities constantly shape the object and vice versa. Hence, such an understanding is important since this study also argues that understanding the historicity can help in surfacing and responding to contradictions in complex interacting activity systems. The AGRITEX activity system showed that it is an important activity that has also over time been collectively changed by the farmers’ activity system and in response its object has also been reshaped together with its activity.

In the modern Nyanyadzi irrigation scheme the AGRITEX activity is seen to have been influenced and shaped by many factors including partisan politics, resistance by the irrigation IMC together with the farmers and lastly, changes in government policies over the smallholder irrigation schemes. From my understanding and observations, the main object of the AGRITEX has not changed at all, but there has been a reshaping and change in some aspects of the activity itself. A movement from Alternative one of the demonstration processes to Alternative three of demonstration can also be visualised in the activity itself. As noted by the following interviewee with FGI 1:

Scenario 1

Researcher: So, when you arrived here before independence as a farmer were you taught any farming through your interactions and working with the Extension workers in the irrigation scheme?

FGI 1: Yes, we learnt a lot, because they used to teach us on things like manuring, plant spacing…

Researcher: So, at most what did they teach you?

FGI 1: On planting, they would call us to the demonstration plot and would teach us there.

Researcher: Okay so there were some demonstration plots?

FGI 1: Yes, they (Extension officers) would call us there, and they would demonstrate how to plant.