Posted on 12/30/2002 9:26:21 AM PST by Clive
"If you think the current food situation is bad, just wait until next season," says the white farmer's wife. "That's when we'll see a real disaster."
Her husband, one of Zimbabwe's most successful farmers and president of the Commercial Farmers' Union in the 1980s, was recently evicted from his farm. The property used to produce 400,000kg of tobacco annually, along with flowers, citrus and beef for export, and maize for domestic consumption. Today it is nearly derelict.
The land has been split into more than 20 plots for "new age" black farmers, only two of which are occupied. His workforce had been with him for most of his working life, leaving him with a redundancy bill of Z$60m (US$1.1m).
As the campaign gathers momentum in England and elsewhere to boycott six cricket World Cup games scheduled to be played in Zimbabwe next year, hundreds of commercial farmers across the country have similar stories to tell. While the government insists that it has broken the mould of white colonialism and "given the people back their land", even government ministers are now backing away from claims of a great leap forward in farm production.
Official figures show some 300,000 to 350,000 people have been resettled on the 3,000-plus farms acquired from their former owners - without compensation, although some owners have been partially paid out for improvements.
But even Joseph Made, the agriculture minister, is unable to say how much is being planted and what the 2003 harvest is likely to be. "We only hope that the new farmers will be able to produce enough grain to feed the country," he recently told a parliamentary committee.
First-hand assessments by those who have driven through or flown over the country are near-unanimous: huge areas of former commercially owned land lie idle.
The Zimbabwe Tobacco Association recently upgraded its forecast for the coming harvest by 20 per cent to between 80m and 85m kg but this is still about half the 2002 figure and two-thirds down on 2000's record. The crop is unlikely to earn more than US$180m, less than half the 2002 level.
Since tobacco normally accounts for 25 to 30 per cent of export earnings, it is clear that Zimbabwe's import capacity will be squeezed even more during 2003, especially as beef and horticultural exports, and possibly also cotton, will fall too, albeit less dramatically.
As exports slide, import demand is increasing - specifically for food. The Zimbabwe Grain Producers Association (ZGPA) is estimating a 17 per cent reduction in the area under maize to 1.1m hectares. The combination of erratic rainfall, severe shortages of seed and fertiliser, and a shift from high-yielding commercial farming to semi- subsistence production could mean a crop of only 660,000 tonnes.
This is little more than half of estimated human consumption and 37 per cent of total demand, including livestock requirements. The ZGPA expects a shortfall of at least 400,000 tonnes in the current season ending next March. As a result, Zimbabwe will have to import upwards of 1.6m tonnes of maize during 2003.
In their recent assessment of the regional food supply situation, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank warned that prospects for 2003 were "very poor". They estimate food production has fallen to one third of previous years' levels while the prevalence of HIV/Aids, foreign exchange shortages and growing unemployment have exacerbated shortages.
The World Food Programme defines some 6.7m Zimbabweans - more than half the population - as "food insecure". But by the end of last month, aid agencies had reached only 2.2m people, and current food aid stocks can feed less than half of those in need.
In its December report, the USAid-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network said food security was "still critical in most rural areas".
As well as the staple maize meal, people queue for bread, sugar, cooking oil and salt. But with food price inflation of 21.5 per cent last month and 235 per cent over the past year, fewer and fewer can afford to buy what they need. Predictably, across-the-board government price controls are being either ignored or by- passed via a booming black market.
While some of this deepening catastrophe can be laid at the door of last season's drought - and a widely forecast poor rainfall season in 2002-03 - analysts say President Robert Mugabe's government must shoulder much of the blame. As one bank economist puts it: "Interest rates, the exchange rate, the budget, price controls, land resettlement - you name it, the government has got it wrong."
As the problems pile up, 2003 increasingly has the look of a crunch year. Threatened cricket boycotts notwithstanding, Mr Mugabe's statements and demeanour suggest that for him, at least, change is not on the agenda.
As one bank economist puts it: "Interest rates, the exchange rate, the budget, price controls, land resettlement - you name it, the government has got it wrong."
That's an inside joke....right?
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