Comments and Criticism Welcome.
I have a small following of readers who regularly pass comments on my blog. Some openly sympathise with my thoughts, while others vehemently disagree, especially in regard to compensation. Most are of like mind and openly state their support. Unfortunately, those who disagree normally write to me privately in person. Some of these are long-time friends, although now separated by circumstance rather than choice. As they write to me in a private capacity, I am reluctant to share their thoughts but do take heed of them.
There are a few ex-Zimbabweans in Portugal, but there is only a small number who we keep in touch with. It is a pity that those who disagree with me do not do so in the open forums but I suppose there is a reason for this. Many who read the blog are actually not on open media such as Facebook, Linkedin, etc., so are and wish to remain very private. I have no criticism there; if it had not been for my illness and physical weakness, I would have probably stuck more to outdoor activities than indoors.
“The internet is an easy way for the lazy and infirm to keep in touch with world events and friends. The problem is the veracity of the news, and the privacy of users is more and more under threat, therefore eroding much of its attraction.” - Peter McSporran
But in saying that, I would find it interesting if my detractors openly posted their contrary views publicly, as I am sure some of my readers share their views or perhaps have different ones but are just too reticent to declare them. Open dialogue is so important in this modern world, where it appears much harder to portray your true views due to the threat of a cascade of criticism from the ever-vocal (read as texters) on the internet who call themselves influencers. Do not dare publicly denounce their views unless you are happy to take a torrent of online abuse, as many have found. My gut feeling is these people have a lot less influence on the middle-aged and aged than they do on the youth, although they are even slowly seeing the shallowness of their doctrines. Much of what they say is unsubstantiated by science or social norms, rather mostly self-perception built on little actual knowledge of the subject. Farmers in the UK are certainly feeling the brunt of this rhetoric at present. Meantime, the more rabid, such as those advocates of social disruption, like Just Stop Oil or Extinction Rebellion, often detract from their cause by their irrational acts.
“New age activism. I, like many, wonder, what is the point of blocking an ambulance from taking a casualty to the hospital or spraying a work of art with orange paint other than for self-seeking publicity? It is certainly not helping their cause.” - Peter McSporran
Perhaps it is the hypocrisy of it all that undermines them most. All have cell phones and wear designer clothes and shoes primarily made in the dirty industrial east, not least in China. They criticise local industry and now are especially focused on farmers and demand further environmental rules which impact on their home nation's ability to produce food and manufacture everyday consumer goods, which they demand to be cheap. This transfers more jobs and production to those countries, which in turn increases their use of fossil-fueled energy in their manufacturing, where regulation barely exists and whose yearly increase in dirty gases exceeds the annual total in the UK. They have such a narrow view of the world; perhaps their minds are incapable of a holistic approach. Their propaganda is mainly built on untruths, if not downright lies.
Talking about lies, I have spent a fair amount of time watching the lies on two present-day, real-life, real-time dramas. The live feeds of the inquiries into the UK Post Office Scandal and the Covid Inquiry, the latter especially as it brought into light how dysfunctional and opaque the Scottish National Party (SNP) government has been.
The Post Office Scandal is hard to understand. Why that organisation, the Post Office, a body corporate, would falsely accuse and victimise the very people who were and still are the strength of this organisation, that is, the local post office? Every town and village in the UK relied on them for mail and other services, including provisions. At a very early age on Mull, I would visit the Gruline Post Office to buy my sweets while the farm workers would buy their Wriggly chewing gum and Woodbine cigarettes. There was not even a village there, just the post office attached to a rural home halfway between the school and our home.
It was bad enough falsely accusing these people, relying totally on technology, of theft, but what I cannot get my head around is the rationale for them continuing after they were informed it was most probably down to a computer glitch. Even with this knowledge, as an organisation, they bought into these lies despite contrary evidence and continued prosecuting the innocent. It must have been with guidance from the top.
I do not know how many senior staff of the Post Office I have heard on air saying, “It wasn’t me.” This is a sentence those who have worked in Africa have heard all too often, not an excuse you expect from a highly paid-professional. Further, some even lied to the extent that despite their signatures present on the documents, they claimed the statements were not theirs. I am interested to see what sort of punishment will be meted out to them; many have already left the Post Office with huge monetary rewards in the form of bonuses. If this is the standard of all corporate employees, then there is little wonder that many large businesses work more in a wonderland than in reality. Many times, I have scratched my head trying to fathom how some large corporations make any money yet continue to post profits annually.
“I think on occasion some corporate profits are more closely akin to smoke and mirrors than good business foundations supported by credible accounting in their balance sheet.” - Peter McSporran
As for events north of the English border during and post-COVID-19, it makes you wonder if lies are what the expected modus operandi of the SNP is. To hide the truth, they have gone as far as shredding minutes, denying they ever existed while also destroying e-mails and of course, WhatsApps. The little bit found on others' WhatsApp conversations is embarrassing enough. I presume it's much worse than Sturgeon calling Truss of being as much use as a ‘marzipan dildo’. It would appear the last thing anyone wanted, including Sturgeon, was the truth to be told.
The trouble with the lies of both the Post Office and the Scottish government is that both did not just impact people's lives; they actually destroyed them.
“In both instances, even at this late stage, if the truth were told, it would indicate some remorse for their actions. I am not holding my breath for this to happen as it appears to be above the social conscience of those involved.” - Peter McSporran
The Seismic Change to Agricultural Marketing in Zimbabwe.
No sooner had the rains arrived. The crops began to grow and no sooner our offices at the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) were inundated with reports of armyworm outbreaks destroying all maize and grasses on their march. Luckily many services, including aerial spraying, were still in place to combat this. Although in saying that, a panic, the then Vice President of the country Joshua Nkomo stated the effect of armyworm on crops could be worse than the previous droughts. However, unlike drought, armyworms could be controlled. Another problem with the return of the rains was that dams that had been dry for years found their stability greatly impeded, with a few bursting around the country, notably the Mazowe Valley and the Midlands. I visited one belonging to the Tapson family in Que Que where just the day before, they had been celebrating its near filling, the first time in many years, on returning from church the next day, they found it had burst. No damage was done downstream luckily but the thousands of dead fish surprisingly attracted vast numbers of vultures. Devastating to the farm's viability.
But generally, the rains were welcome, and by February, we, at the invitation of the Matabeleland Branch, held our monthly council meeting at the Matopos Research Station. Matopos was a world-renowned, state-owned ranching research station, the head of which was Tim Smith. It remained one of the last Rhodesian-created state research institutions still functioning thirteen years after independence. It did not last too much longer as the Department of Research and Specialist Services saw scientists and administrators being replaced by political appointees.
Meanwhile, the CFU council was getting more and more agitated with there being no alternative to the controlled marketing system, although to date, the government's utterances in regard to this were more rhetorical than deed. It was decided to bring in someone who was familiar with exchanges in the form of an American retiree volunteer from the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT). Ted Williams, if I remember his name correctly.
One of the main stumbling blocks we found was when farmers realised that with the loss of controlled marketing, the cost of transport was to the farmer. This meant that the more isolated, or at least those further away from the processors, would receive a lower price on the exchange to cater for the cost of transport or absorb it themselves. After much discussion, the agreement was that the price would be Harare-based. Those processors in centres outside Harare wanting delivery to their premises could offer variations to the Harare prices on delivery, with the base price remaining. This seemed to confuse or upset the farmers, who were used to a global price wherever the commodity was delivered. There were going to be a lot of discussions required at the Farmer Association level to get them on board. Some did not want change but it was inevitable. Funnily enough, in the northern grain-producing areas, many grew tobacco and for that crop, it was normal for the producer to absorb the transport costs.
“The world over farmers have a great fear of and hence the reluctance to change, be it their production methods or marketing.” - Peter McSporran
About this time, we employed Stu Cranswick, who had trading experience on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, to develop the exchange with the support of the American expert. Later in the year Stu and I were to visit the CBOT and quickly understood it would be a long time before we traded in futures and other agricultural derivatives used daily in more sophisticated markets. Luckily in South Africa, they had already set up a commodity exchange for agriculture, SAFEX, and they were more than happy to assist in our endeavours. I do wish I could remember the individual's names now. This agricultural exchange in South Africa now trades all the derivatives found in an exchange and is not restricted to agriculture.
I found the concept of commodity exchange exhilarating and devoted a lot of time to it. We first had to coerce the processors and traders, the former more than happy to slow the process down as much as possible, as the state marketing system had been very much to their advantage. With it, they only bought raw materials when required. The other problem was storage, the present storage depots all belonged to the state and while some could be hired the large producing areas started looking at their own storage infrastructure and crop storage finance. It was a seismic change in agricultural marketing with many farmers in trepidation of the future.
Disclaimer: Copyright Peter McSporran. The content in this blog represents my personal views and does not reflect corporate entities.
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