Kamativi: Agriculture Inputs or Mining Capital?

Pfumbudza/Intwasa is a government initiative aimed at increasing farmers’ resilience and ensuring food self-sufficiency for the people.

BY CALVIN MANIKA | @The_CBNews | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | DEC 31, 2021

Residents of Kamativi are not impressed by the free Pfumvudza/Intwasa agricultural inputs distributed by the government, for them farming is a lost cause in their area, and the government should know better.

HWANGE (The Citizen Bulletin) — Kamativi residents under Hwange Rural District Council Ward 11 have begun receiving the free Pfumvudza/Intwasa agricultural inputs.

Under the scheme, each communal farmer gets 50 kgs of compound D fertilizer, 10 kgs of Pannar (413) seed and 2 kgs of groundnuts seed. The scheme seeks to ensure food security among households.

But not every resident in Kamativi is rejoicing after receiving the inputs. For many, the inputs are a waste of resources. Instead, a majority of residents opine that they should have been given capital to resume the tailings operation in Lithium at the defunct Kamativi mine.

The Kamativi tailings storage facility is a man-made deposit created from dumps produced from the processing of tin mineralisation at the Kamativi mine.

From metallurgical research, the tailings have many deposits of Lithium and tantalite, which if the community is given capital and technical support by the government it can improve the lives of many in Kamativi.

Erick Gumbo says he appreciates the efforts by the government but quickly notes that the region has poor soils.

“This place is not suitable for agriculture. It has been proven for years that agriculture cannot sustain us. Our hope is in mining, of course not tin, but other related minerals available at the mine with markets locally and internationally. That is what we need.”
Erick Gumbo, a resident

Most areas of Kamativi are mountainous and rocky.

This gives residents a torrid time in farming let alone to meet the conditions of the laborious climate proofed farming or Pfumvudza/Intwasa which requires the digging of holes.

For several years, Kamativi residents have recorded poor harvest despite good rains as the area has poor soils coupled with a mountainous landscape. The residents want a capital injection to migrate from agriculture to mining,

Pfumbudza, a government initiative that started last year is aimed at increasing farmers’ resilience and ensuring food self-sufficiency for the people. The government says the project will address the problems of low levels of productivity and production, making the country’s farmers and households more resilient to climate shocks.

Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement, John Basera describes Pfumvudza as a new season of increased productivity.

“It is a season of producing more on less land and with fewer resources; a season of climate-proofing our agriculture through the adoption of Conservation Agriculture,” says Basera.

But Gideon Tshuma sees Pfumbudza as labour intensive and a waste of time in Kamativi.

“The government must use statistics and research, not assumptions.”
Gideon Tshuma

“There are areas where agriculture is not sustainable like Kamativi. The economy of our community can only improve with what we have already. The resuscitation of the mine, research proved that there are some meaningful minerals at the once tin mine like Lithium.”

In 1985, the world tin market collapsed. The International Tin Council crumpled and tin stocks fell through the floor. Tin mines closed shop, from Asia to Kamativi in the arid corner of Matabeleland North. Decades have gone by without meaningful development in Kamativi.

Kamativi mine was forced to shut down after the price of tin collapsed but reinvented itself over time, this time producing lithium. Image by Newzwire

This is a sad situation given that Kamativi Mine has close to 40 million tonnes of open cast tin reserves considered among the biggest in the world. In the 1990s, Kamativi Tin Mine employed over 3 000 people.

Since 2015, many investors have shown interest in a renewed hope for the revival of the mine. But nothing has materialised.

The mine’s former workers through their Kamativi Early Settlers Development Organisation want to establish a  small-scale mining syndicate to operate at the defunct mine.

“Right now, we are not doing well in agriculture, we just do it because there is nothing of commercial value to do in this area except to run a grocery store,” Thomas Gumba, one of the former workers says.

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“But if Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation can incorporate us and lease us technical support for two to three years, we will run the lithium project on our own.”

According to a statement by Jimbata Consultancy, drilling results at the Kamativi lithium project indicates that the resource is commercially viable. Lithium is used in the manufacture of batteries, some of which are used by Tesla.

Some of the lithium projects in Zimbabwe include Prospect Resources, which has raised $55 million on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) to develop its Arcadia mine near Harare.

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