THE FORGOTTEN VALUE – THE RURAL HOME

People want to get outdoors and rural homes give them that opportunity?to escape, it is a good place to be?in good and bad times.?A ?place to save earnings with an opportunity for?the production of food supply.

?The way I see it, the rural home is not just a piece of property but a way?of living, one that is being adopted generally in Zimbabwe?(Tsika dzekumusha). Many people have ignored their rural homes, and some have not even bothered to improve their rural?homes. For many working-class people in and around Zimbabwe, the rural home holds?value?socially, culturally and?productively rather than speculatively.?Underpaid professionals augment their income with a small acreage of food cultivation from their rural homes. I believe?if managed well?rural homes develop a better standard of living and increase the security of families by eliminating their complete dependence on a paycheck.

?The rural homestead can be characterized as having several huts, a garden plot adjacent to the huts, a cattle kraal and some other livestock, tools and equipment, agricultural storage huts, other implements for farming, and agricultural fields. Establishing the homestead?in Zimbabwe?is culturally considered a sign of social maturity and economic prosperity, and the homestead holds material, social, and religious?symbolic importance for its members.

?Establishing the site for building (musha) is also important, as it relates to one’s connection with their?roots,?land rights and?burial sites.?This identification with the land is therefore fundamentally linked to the cultural, material?and historical connections to the?homestead, which ideologically connects one to the totem, clan and the village?where?one lives in, and thereby gives some sense of meaning to one’s life.

?The USA has put great importance on rural homes thus George W. Bush, Second Inaugural Address, January 20, 2005, said “In America's ideal of freedom, citizens find the dignity and security of economic independence, instead of labouring on the edge of subsistence. This is a broader definition of liberty that motivated the Homestead Act …”?The?Homestead Act of 1862?was one of the most significant and enduring events in the westward expansion of the United States. By granting 160 acres of free land to claimants, it allowed nearly any man or woman a chance to live the American dream. Homestead National Monument of America, located in Southeast Nebraska, commemorates this Act every year and the far-reaching effects it had upon the landscape and people. It is important that in Zimbabwe we put much importance into rural properties for the benefits to be discussed.

?VALUE OF THE GARDEN

I have observed in Zimbabwe that a rural development?design strategy is being mooted by different Ministries?to construct both large and small vegetable gardens, growing cabbage, onions, carrots, kale, other salad greens, chilli peppers, beans, and so on?for family food security.?There are plans to?utilize the?rural home with?a vegetable garden where one?can grow and sell organic vegetables. The advantage of this programme is that the land is freely allocated by village heads?or one?may?inherit?it?from the clan, so there is no need to?bother buying expensive plots.?All one?need is to invest in a source of water such as a borehole or block valley flowing water with a heap of sand creating a dam. This source of water will turn your?rural?home into a productive place and increases its value in case you want to sell the improvements.

CHEAP RURAL LABOUR

There is a lot of cheap rural labour, rural communities?often promote neighbourhood sharing, in that neighbours?for meat and beer gather to plant, weed, and harvest?each other`s?fields thereby decreasing the overall labour cost that one?would require to maintain larger fields.

One of the benefits of collective concentrated work?(Nhimbe)?is that it helps to stack functions, thereby increasing one`s?agricultural returns. Moreover shared work also has social benefits, in that it allows people in society to reinforce their values through practising behaviour?that they collectively find appropriate. Collectively one`s?economic success?has a social relationship, because those with wealth often share in gatherings and distribute wealth symbolically?(Kuronzesa mombe), ensuring that natural resources are accessible to all members of the community, protecting these resources for everyone in the village makes sense for you and the collective success of the village real estate structure as a whole.

POTENTIAL ECONOMIC BENEFITS

In the fields?where the homestead is located,?one?can grow vegetables or crop plants that require less frequent maintenance and less weed control. In the rural Zimbabwean context, there are larger fields behind the cattle kraal?(Pastandi). The fields often lie fallow for some time after the harvest of maize?and other seasonal crops.?During the rainy season, these fields?do require weeding at intervals throughout the growing season. Generally, the fields do not require as much attention as the smaller vegetable gardens?usually located near a dam or a river.

To improve the soil nutrients in these fields, maize is often planted with a variety of beans and squash, albeit beans and squash are often grown more along the edges of the fields. If you put up a borehole or other source of water in this field, you get big rewards. Mr Mudavanhu in Bikita Masvingo use?this type of?field during the dry season to?plant 50 000 onions yearly which he sells dollar for ten and you can make the calculations for his income. He uses the money to create a good piece of?rural real estate that cannot be found in many urban properties. He alternates the onion crop with cabbages.

When you have a rural property you also enjoy communal areas which are semi-wild or wild, respectively. In rural Zimbabwe, these locations happen to be the wider untilled fields, streams, river-valley lowlands, and forests?(Kumafuro). In both these zones, rural residents make use of their natural surroundings by foraging and collecting wild foods, medicinal plants, timber for building, and firewood, and some community members hunt for small game. More importantly, you can rear an unlimited number of goats, and sheep that roam across the village into the next villages, thus giving you tremendous amounts of pastures. A friend of mine supplies 50 goats a month to food outlets in Harare from his rural home in Guruve at an average of $ 30 USD?per beast and no tie-dangling middle manager can match his untaxed income.

RAINWATER HARVESTING

It’s easy to harvest water near your rural Property, rainwater harvesting is one of those changing adaptations that people are making to better their lives in most rural households, a friend of mine hired a front-end loader to dig a deep hole that he collects water for use throughout the year, another friend?blocked water along a valley with a grader?and he uses the water throughout the year and fish farm.?Currently, the use of mobile storage tanks and make-shift dams for rain?harvesting?has empowered many communities?to avoid the physically demanding labour of hauling water from the valley streams and springs up to the homestead or garden.

?With access to water, you can have a big orchard on your rural property, Common forms of planting included small woodlots, fruit trees, and ornamental. The most commonly planted fruit trees in rural homes are avocados, bananas, and peaches, mangoes, oranges and these have a great market in towns. You can do labour-intensive agroforestry practices such as maize/leucine?inter-cropping.?I visited a homestead in Nyanga and there is a big banana plantation, the farmer lives in Harare but sells 50 tons of bananas a week, in Zaka I visited a farmer who drilled a borehole and has a big orange, mango plantation which harvested over 300 tonnes of fruits per season, the farmer stays in Gweru. You can maintain your rural home productively by doing projects that do not require your daily attention and still maintain value.

CHIEFS MUST BE BUSINESS COMMUNITY MANAGERS

When I was visiting various rural homes I realized that there is a lot of good real estate in rural areas that need to be exploited. I basically noted that we are not putting value into rural real estate and we are not valuing and managing it for economic growth. Village heads, headmen, and Chiefs must be turned from being community leaders to community business managers with business targets to achieve at their administrative levels, this will help have controlled growth in rural economic development.

For example, Village Heads must be given targets?to?achieve on crop produce in tonnes, making sure all fields in their villages are cultivated and giving reports on why certain fields remain farrow?to relevant ministries. They must also monitor and give?each villager basic features of a homestead to be achieved,?e,g ?like each homestead to?have a well of water, make sure that each household has clean water and enough water for the garden, To make sure how many chickens, goats, sheep, cattle shall each household have as a minimum?and make sure the minimum number is maintained.?To make sure?how many fruit trees each homestead must have. They must deliberately?monitor and encourage collective labour so that each villager attains these targets. Manage how many huts must one build and thatch with grass?as basic housing standard. This avoids scenes which I saw?at one homestead,?where there was?only one hut, no well, no fruit tree, no running chicken?in the yard?and the land is farrow. This brings questions such as;??where is this person`s value, can't he be managed to create value out of his labour?and natural resources?to improve his homestead?and quality of life?

We must?never doubt the use of these systems of cultural practice by village heads?and chiefs?to create value in their communities, as these often develop over time and embrace indigenous knowledge to create wealth. I think the rural engagement with an agrarian lifestyle is more complex than it appears, as cultural characteristics of rural life in Zimbabwe reflect alternatives to models of what agriculture should be: productive, efficient, rational, enterprising, and modern?in an effort to create a valuable real estate.

Do you have a rural home that is idle and needs ideas, contact [email protected] , WhatsApp 0718205562, or landline 0242443890. Mutsa Chikede is a Property Negotiator with TEREZIM FORTRESS PROPERTIES?www.terezim.co.zw. ?