Posted on 09/07/2005 8:17:13 AM PDT by Clive
Harare -- Zimbabwe, once a regional breadbasket, is facing its worst agricultural season since independence in 1980, with shortages of seed, fertilizer and equipment threatening next year's harvest before it even has been planted, farmers and other experts said.
Some of those warnings were issued in testimony before Parliament's agriculture committee, the state-run Herald newspaper and ruling party-allied Daily Mirror reported Wednesday.
Fertilizer companies told the committee that their warehouses were empty. The Zimbabwe Seed Traders Association said there are only 28,660 tonnes of corn seed in the country, slightly more than half of what is needed.
The Agricultural Dealers and Manufacturers' Association has run out of plow disks for the first time in its history. There also are key shortages of irrigation piping, pumps, pesticides and other chemicals, suppliers said.
"The information you have given us simply shows that there is no season," committee chairman Walter Mzembi was quoted as saying.
The seizure of thousands of white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to black Zimbabweans, on top of years of drought, has crippled Zimbabwe's agriculture-based economy. About four million people will need food aid before the next harvest in what was once a regional breadbasket, UN estimates indicate.
"This coming season's production prospects are the worst since 1980 independence due to inputs shortages and the lack of a strong message to allow all farmers to produce with confidence," Doug Taylor-Freeme, president of the mostly white Commercial Farmers Union, told the Associated Press on Wednesday.
President Robert Mugabe's government says it has settled 300,000 black families on formerly white-owned farms, but UN agencies report that many are derelict, with irrigation and housing vandalized, and livestock stolen or slaughtered.
Mr. Mugabe has promised $287-million in assistance to black farmers.
But Edward Raradza, vice-president of the black Zimbabwe Farmers' Union, said 60 per cent of the funds advanced by the government for cropping had not reached their intended beneficiaries. His organization represents 800,000 families in communal farming areas.
"There have been too many middlemen," testified Wilfanos Mashingaidze, chairman of the Tobacco Growers' Trust. "The resources from government are going down the drain. They are disappearing like mist."
Envy isn't the emotion that they have. Try greed.
"says it has settled 300,000 black families on formerly white-owned farms, but UN agencies report that many are derelict, with irrigation and housing vandalized, and livestock stolen or slaughtered"
I'm not trying to be racist or anything, but between this and New Orleans, at some point you have to start wondering "What's up w/ blacks?"
"Perhaps if the people don't want to starve, they should get some sharp sticks and axes and institute some political reforms.
The country had a vibrant economy until James Callaghan and Jimmy Carter conspired to topple the government there. Those two men deserve full credit for each baby that starves."
This is a great point. I never made the connection but you are right. You need to do some fact finding and start righting op-ed peices and letters to editors.
Must have been Bush. Not the fact that this dictator seized farms from their rightful owners, giving them to people who had no idea about farming.
Not the fact that this marxist is turning his country into a communist dump.
Sorry we got enough problems here. We cannot take care of the world. We are looking as fools because of Katrina, and their Democrat Mayor and Governor.
Remember FEMA is only a SECONDARY backup to local and state government help FIRST.
Looks like it's getting to be time for yet another black African dictator to retire to the French Riviera, along with billions of dollars he found on the sidewalk.
Well, that, and MUGabe!
Here's the link again!
Don't know why it wasn't right the first time!
http://www.organicconsumers.org/gefood/zimbabwe060702.cfm
I saw this coming when they first started to seize the farms.
This has been a problem for many years. Maybe they should give back the farms to the white farmers who fed them???
I'm black, and I say let 'em starve. They MUST LEARN the hard way that communism does not work. They MUST LEARN to turn on and destroy people like R. Mugabe.
They killed them (well a lot of them, anyways). Oops.
They killed the hand that feeds them.
And we are worried about them because?.......
The Chinese will be more than happy to step in here.
"About four million people will need food aid before the next harvest"
Calling Randall Robinson! Mr. Robinson to the "starvation solution" phone! Calling Mr. Robinson!
"Here is a unique historical case where a nations "majority" (in numbers) seemed to have supported the rise in power of thier (soon to be) dictator by "popular demand."
I believe Hitler also came to power by "popular demand."
Sad, but it happens.
Farmers would work 24/7 to bring crops to market, investing in seed, labor and infrastructure to fill every grain bin in the country, at a tidy profit to themselves.
Reality is that any farmer who tries it will be killed or looted into poverty by thugs or thrown off his land by the government, long before his crop ripens. No bank would invest in such a scheme with so tiny a chance of success, especially since any profit would be immediately seized by Mugabe's henchmen.
Even if a farmer succeeded in growing a crop, he has to compete with misguided foreign donors who offer FREE food. Impossible!
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