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Ruth Butaumocho
Mrs Siphangisile Mpofu (49) opens her granary full to the brim with sorghum and measures four 20 litre buckets.
One by one, she takes them outside.She beckons the prospective buyer and asks him if what she is offering will be enough to trade with the three-year old donkey tied to the tree, just a stone’s throw away from the homestead.

The buyer nods in satisfaction and the transaction is sealed.

“Ukuswela imali akusoze kuphambinise impilo zethu, (Not having hard currency does not stop us from living our life to the full),” said Ms Mpofu of Chief Ndengwane in Tsholotsho recently.

Barter trade has become more common for most communities throughout Zimbabwe as people find alternatives to deal with the problem of liquidity in the country.

Literally defined as trading of goods and services without the exchange of money, the ancient practice, which is as almost as old as civilization, has been revitalised in the country and is taking many forms.

Far from being regarded as an archaic practice, communities have embraced barter trade, saying it is an easy sell these days and yields positive results on each end.

While in the minds of many barter trade might create images of cavemen handing over slaughtered game in exchange for firearms, the practice is actually sophisticated and has been given several equally sophisticated names to match the positive spin offs associated with it.

The beauty about barter trade is that it has not been confined to food and livestock only, but even labour and services, which have become acceptable forms of transaction.

“We can go for months without using hard currency, but we are not struggling and our lives are moving smoothly. Each one of the villagers has got something that they barter with and we are never short of anything. We have learnt how to trade among ourselves and even with outsiders who come looking for different items,” added Mrs Mpofu.

Village head Mr Elvis Ncube concurred saying there has been transformational change among his people from the time they resorted to barter trade to ameliorate the problem of currency shortage.

“The engine that drives barter trade here is unused or excess capacity that every villager at household level has. People even barter their labour for food, livestock and clothes.

“It’s a simple grassroots solution that everyone is happy with. We are concentrating on putting workable solutions on the table for our people,” he said.

The transactions which come in different forms with groceries, clothing and livestock being the most common items finding their way on the barter market, are not confined to rural areas but also taking place in urban areas.

Farmers from surrounding communities like Murehwa and Domboshawa are now moving around residential areas in and around Harare exchanging their crops with clothes, groceries, electrical gadgets and in some instances pieces of furniture.

With a 15kg packet of potatoes a farmer trading with a buyer in the Avenues area can get two pairs of curtains and a packet of rice.
For a month’s supply of potatoes, a farmer can get himself a good second hand bed, wardrobe or furniture of similar value.

“Most of the farmers that come here selling their agricultural produces, are very flexible and accept anything of a similar value. Because they don’t sell their crops on credit, we are happy to transact with groceries and household accessories,” said Godrey Tenhedza, who lives in the Avenues area in the capital.

In some communities like Chiweshe, villagers who cannot afford to pay for treatment services at some of the mission hospitals can bring a bucket of maize or two, depending on the amount of money required by the hospital administrators.

“Barter trade is nothing new. Even well after independence, people from different communities would bring mat reeds to sell in most residential areas in exchange for clothes and food.

“The practice has somewhat been strengthened by the inaccessibility of hard cash, and we now see more people than before exchanging their crops and livestock with groceries and furniture,” said village head Mr Harrison Bosha of Rwanga area in Chiweshe.

He added that during harvesting, the villages are usually agog with business activities as people from different areas outside Chiweshe visit the area to trade in different goods and communities.

Despite the positive spin offs that can be achieved from barter trade, the practice can be fraught with peril.

Profit is never guaranteed in such transactions and in some instances, both parties can later realise that the barter was not fairly conducted and the deal cannot be reserved, because the goods would have been used.

“We had to mediate in disputes following botched transactions, but the cases are rare,” said Mr Ncube.

The practice has also been prone to manipulation by unscrupulous businesspeople, who are flouting the exchange practice by offering less for more, prejudicing desperate villagers.

Taking advantage of the villagers, businesspeople usually ferry truckloads of goodies which they usually exchange with livestock such as cattle, goats and sheep for far less than the actual market price, short changing farmers. They would then resell the same for much higher prices than what they exchanged with the villages.

“Sometimes people come here, offering less for our crops and livestock, and at times we have to give in, because our situation would be dire,” said headman Thomas Ndengwane from Tsholotsho.

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