Food production
- From: "Zvakanaka" <lalapansi@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2007 05:37:50 +0200
If you don't have knowledgeable farmers to farm, if you don't have fuel for
tractors, if you don't have electricity to irrigate, if you don't have
fertiliser and seed, if you don't have insecticides and herbicides ..... you
don't produce enough food. Zanupf have destroyed agriculture in Zimbabwe.
There is no point in hypothesising over whether there will be a good crop
because there won't be despite zanupf continual lies about bumper harvests.
----------------------------
Writing is on the wall
FinGaz
Comment
THE 2007/08 farming season, which will be upon us in a few weeks' time, will
be a litmus test for the country's agricultural sector in that it offers the
world yet another opportunity to see if indeed a measure of progress has
been achieved in restoring Zimbabwe's breadbasket status as claimed by
government officials.
Despite predictions by meteorologists of high chances of normal to above
normal rainfall throughout the country after a devastating dry spell last
season, a sense of trepidation is emerging quite strongly in the court of
public opinion. It is again feared that the country, neck-deep in the throes
of an economic recession blamed on the controversial land seizures
spearheaded by the war veterans in 2000, may not pass the litmus test for
the umpteenth time.
These fears, coming as the government struggles to feed an estimated 2.1
million people facing serious food shortages due to crop failure and
escalating poverty, are predicated on an assessment of the country's state
of preparedness ahead of the onset of the rains around November, which is
pointing to a poor season. Another poor season will certainly worsen the
plight of ordinary Zimbabweans, who are feeling the sharpest edge of the
economic meltdown that has persisted for the past seven years.
Seven years after the emotive farm expropriations, which government claims
influenced European and western states' decision to slap President Robert
Mugabe and his close lieutenants with targeted sanctions, the rough edges
are still to smoothen for indigenous farmers who settled on the farms
wrested from the minority whites. Uncertainty continues to hang over the
security of tenure, amid reports of fresh farm seizures, acute shortages of
tillage facilities and inputs such as fertilisers, seed and chemicals, which
could minimise yields.
The shortage of these important inputs impacts negatively on land
preparation and consequently on crop yields and production. Out of the
national requirement of 600 000 tonnes of fertilisers, only less than a
third of that has been produced. It means, therefore, that the downward
trend in output, which started at the height of the land reforms in 2000,
will continue.
Reports that Iron Duke, Zimphos and Dorowa Minerals, the producers of
essential inputs used in the manufacture of fertilisers, stopped production
last month owing to power cuts and raw material shortages are another
indictment on the country's failure to plan ahead. As it is, tobacco
planting, which has begun in earnest, has been off to a rough start.
Another bad year will be too ghastly to contemplate for the country, which
is scrounging for foreign currency to cover food deficits and mitigate the
inputs shortages.
Government, which has declared war on inflation - fingered as the number one
enemy - needs to get its act together, first by laying a strong foundation
in agriculture upon which efforts to turn around the country's economy can
be anchored. It is only logical that the country increases agricultural
output to dampen underlying inflationary pressures since food commands the
biggest weight on the consumer price index, used to measure inflation.
Any prospects for a quick turnaround would be doomed for as long as
agriculture, whose contribution to the gross domestic product had risen to
about 18 percent, is not firing from all cylinders. Being the backbone of
the country's economy, it is critical that agriculture gets all the support
it requires. But what has been happening on the farms of late bears no
resemblance to the zeal witnessed when thousands of landless blacks poured
onto the farms, with so much promise to transform this critical sector.
Some of the country's most productive farms have since been turned into
braaing spots or leisure resorts where farmhouses have been converted into
lodges of some sort for flirting chefs and their concubines. But it would be
unfair to heap all the blame on the farmers, as government, banks and other
institutions involved in agriculture have also taken their feet off the
pedals.
In the absence of support from these critical pillars, farmers have not
received essential agricultural inputs on time, financial incentives have
been little and far in between, extension services are inadequate and
returns have been sub-economic. Poor pricing of inputs, power and foreign
currency shortages have also combined to worsen the plight of both the
farmers and institutions that support agriculture.
In the end, it has become difficult for farmers to cover escalating
overheads let alone reinvest in production, particularly now that the
government has maintained a tight lid on prices. No wonder why most farmers
have moved away from the production of crops such as maize, cotton, sugar,
coffee and oil seed whose prices have been kept below economic levels.
The import of all this is that the writing is already on the wall:
Zimbabweans should brace for another poor harvest, which means more food
imports, rampant inflation and rising poverty.
.
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