Rural violence deters agro-sector modernisation, large investments

It is increasing violence in a number of rural areas on account of land shortages and poor returns on what is farmed or kept as livestock, keeping large numbers of youth without much labour intensive preoccupations for long periods. It encourages drinking, violence and criminality in looking for unguarded crops, even households, to break into and cart away belongings.

Economic history shows that most pre-industrial societies that are at the threshold of industrialisation have phenomenal levels of rural violence, as an expression of pent up anger of non-utilized labour, in a  sense punishing for its lack of interest in using its labour for assured remuneration. Chances that such labour focuses on agriculture require that this is transformed to mechanization, which requires the presence of an investor who takes up a piece of land, puts machinery for planting, weeding and produce processing. Youths in that area will be interested in the paid work, not in agricultural industry as such.

Policy makers ought to take note of synergies in various sectors, for instance tourism and the hospitality industry on one hand, and the sort of reception or conduct of surrounding communities that investors can expect. While there are no direct links between tourist numbers and potential investors in horticulture for instance, there is mentally speaking a link, as someone might wish to visit a country first to get a taste of its surroundings, not just listen to the little one hears about Tanzania or any African country in Europe or elsewhere. That is where violence comes in, that one robs a tourist and deters a host of potential investors.

There are other areas where community behaviour counts a lot as to how they may fare in attracting international visitors, for instance in medical tourism. If a farm is waylaid by robbers and this news is splashed in newspapers across the border, how would a sick person trust that he or she would be in safe hands, when an impression is created of gratuitous violence as part of the social fabric? People wish to hear that things go smoothly, not that they are smooth at airports and hotels, not in small towns nearby.

Yet, it will not be possible to stop violence by preaching that it deters investors, but by removing the circumstances of its occurrence, namely, in the fruitful use of labour that the youths dispose and that can be tricky. No option exists of placing the youths in camps to produce as a militarized society wouldn’t have private investments; it is soon ruined as in the past century. We must remove customary land law, simplify purchasing land, empowering those who sell land and thus invest as well, employing the youths.