Pedigree cattle under threat

If nothing is done by the President of Zimbabwe, his ruling ZANU PF party or the international community – which has provided food aid to the country every year since the inception of the farm invasions in 2000 – the owners, commercial farmer Dave Conolly and his brother, Mike Conolly, will be forced to send both herds, as well as their dairy herd, for slaughter.

Bred over the last 80 years for Zimbabwe’s very specific conditions, the pedigree Hereford herd has a connection to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, who visited the country – then Southern Rhodesia, in 1953.

During the Royal tour, the Queen Mother presented the Conollys’ father, Joe Conolly, with the Bulawayo Agricultural Society’s 1,000 guinea floating trophy for the best bull on show at the Bulawayo Show. This was a magnificent Hereford bull, and the family has a treasured photograph of the event.

“Hereford cattle have proved to be ideal for cross-breeding with the indigenous cattle as they have much better food conversion ratios than the indigenous breeds, which significantly improves the productivity of the land,” explained Dave.

The Senepol, a Red Poll/African N’dama cross, is ideal for the low rainfall and drought-prone Matabeleland South province, where Dave’s Centenary farm is located, because it is heat tolerant and resistant to parasites.

Dave and Mike, who is on the adjoining Boxwell farm, set up their Senepol breeding programme in 1996 and it has been highly successful. South Africa’s first breeding stock originated from Zimbabwe.

The significance of these last breeding herds for Zimbabwe – and also for the southern African region – is clearly of no interest to Dr Ray Ndhlukula, Deputy Chief Secretary to the President and the cabinet.

Since June 2014, Dave has been embroiled in a fierce legal battle with Ndhlukula, who has been trying to take over Centenary farm, despite reportedly having two other farms in Matabeleland South. These are Wilfred Hope Farm in Marula, and Vlakfontein — otherwise known as Subdivision 2 of Marula Block.

On August 5, 2014 Ndhlukula sent his thugs to evicted Dave’s workers and their families from the farm, rendering them destitute, despite a High Court order to block their evictions.

Although a contempt of court case against Ndhlukula was filed at the High Court, Dave was forced off his farm in September 2014. Since then, neither he nor his farm workers have been able to return to their homes and all of their farming activities have been blocked.

Despite the escalating drought, and Ndhlukula being found in contempt of court, Dave’s leave to implement appeal on November 16, 2015 was mysteriously removed from the role in the Bulawayo High Court.

This has allowed Ndhlukula to flaunt the contempt of court order (Judgement No: 43/15) and thus prevented him from making use of the available water right on Centenary Farm.

Ironically Ndhlukula was in charge of the government’s ZimAsset statement of intent for food and food security, announced in December 2013 but now effectively defunct.

Ndhlukula subsequently told the police, the District Administrator and members of the Lands Committee to instruct Mike to also vacate his Boxwell farm which had been consolidated with Centenary farm for practical purposes and operated as a single unit.

While the Hereford and Senepol herds have been kept on Centenary farm since Boxwell is too small for cattle ranching, the dairy is located on Boxwell. Since the takeover of Centenary, the Conollys have had to move their cattle to Boxwell and to provide supplementary feed, which is unsustainable.

A further problem they face is that the dam, which supplies the water for the cattle, pastures and cropping operations using an extensive piping system, is located on Centenary farm, which is under Ndhlukula’s control.

On October 8, 2015 the press reported that southern Africa had suffered one of its worst harvests in years due to a lack of rain, prompting concerns about food shortages across the region.

However, just four days later, on October 12, Mike received a summons from the High Court notifying him that the Minister of Lands, Land Reform and Resettlement was claiming an order for his eviction from Boxwell Farm – and in addition was claiming for the costs of this action.

The same day, the press reported that 7,000 cattle had died in Zimbabwe’s southern provinces and that Masvingo province had been hardest hit with around 5,000 cattle deaths.

In August 2015, the World Food Program (WFP) warned that an estimated 1.5 million Zimbabweans were expected to go hungry after a dramatic fall in maize production. Reports indicated that at least 700,000 tonnes from neighbouring countries was required to avert a food crisis.

USAID mission director, Stephanie Funk was quoted as saying that there was a need to find a solution to the issue of hunger in Zimbabwe by addressing the “root cause”.

“Since 2002, we have provided more than US$1bn in humanitarian assistance to millions of vulnerable Zimbabweans. USAID is providing US$27m to meet immediate food security needs of hundreds of thousands of rural Zimbabweans,” Funk said.

“If I am not allowed back onto my farm to grow fodder crops, the two pedigree cattle herds and the dairy herd will have to be sent for slaughter,” warned Dave.

“We can’t move them to another area because there is foot and mouth disease in the district. In April last year, the disease struck the Matabeleland and Midlands regions, leaving a trail of destruction and poverty and the situation still remains very serious,” he said.

The ZANU PF government and recipients of Mugabe’s patronage like Ndhlukula are destroying Zimbabwe’s assets in the form of pedigree cattle, the human resource that developed and farmed them so successfully and the titled land that combined to make our agricultural sector so successful the past,” warned Ben Freeth, spokesperson for SADC Tribunal Rights Watch.

“Contrary to international public awareness, land invasions are still taking place in Zimbabwe – in this instance by the Deputy Secretary in the President’s Office,” said Freeth.

“ ZANU PF can only rule when the people are on their knees and dependent on the party – either directly or indirectly for food aid, therefore what has happened on Centenary and Boxwell farms is part of their control strategy,” Freeth explained.

As the drought intensifies, maize production estimates have dropped further, with production for the 2015/16 season estimated at only 200,000 tonnes. This represents an estimated shortfall of 1.6 million tonnes. The total cost of imports through to June 2017 is estimated at around US$870 million.

The Conollys are appealing to the international community, which has saved the Zimbabwean people from mass starvation since 2001, to intervene and save their irreplaceable cattle herds for Zimbabwe’s agricultural future.