Failed Agricultural season on the cards as Land Attacks continue
The commercial farming community is lamenting predictions of yet another
failed agricultural season, as the countrywide wave of farm attacks
continues.
The US based Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNET) has warned that
food stocks will be depleted this month, mainly in western Zimbabwe, where
some two million people are set to face hunger. FEWSNET issued a special
report this month saying the availability of food in Zimbabwe could diminish
sharply from October to December, with only a maximum of 1.4 million metric
tonnes of cereals available during those months, compared with the more than
2 million tonnes needed to meet Zimbabwe’s basic food needs.
The worrying assessment comes as commercials farmers themselves have warned
that a failed farming season is on the cards, as a direct result of the
renewed offensive to drive farmers from their land. Since the formation of
the unity government in February there has been an intensified wave of
attacks on commercial land owners, by thugs working for top ZANU PF
loyalists, all in the name of land ‘reform’. Farmers and their workers have
been physically and brutally attacked, valuable produce and equipment has
been stolen, and the fast-track prosecution of farmers in the country’s
courts has been encouraged. This year alone, more than 80 farms have been
seized, at least 200 farmers have faced prosecution and thousands of farm
workers have lost their jobs.
Deon Theron, the President of the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), told SW
Radio Africa that the country is “on a knife edge and facing a very
difficult failed season of crops.” He voiced his frustration that commercial
farming is being deliberately halted, despite the desperate need for food in
a country that has been rated as the most food-aid dependent country in the
world. At the same time, Chegutu farmer Ben Freeth, who has endured some of
the worst violence and intimidation on his land, told SWRA that the country
is heading for “the very worst agricultural season ever.”
All in all more than 6 000 farms, totalling 10.8-million hectares, have been
seized by the state since the land ‘reform’ programme got underway in 2000.
Most of these farms were ‘awarded’ to Robert Mugabe’s family and comrades,
many of whom now ‘own’ multiple farms. Once the pride of sub-Saharan Africa,
Zimbabwe’s farming sector has shrunk alarmingly. In 2000 Zimbabwe produced
two million tons of maize, but this was down to 450 000 tons last year.
Tobacco production has plummeted from 244 000 tons to 40 000 tons. The
number of commercial farmers has shrunk radically from 4 500 in 2000 to 400.
But despite these numbers that provide proof of Zimbabwe’s economic
destruction, by way of land ‘reform’, the land grab campaign has
intensified, to satisfy what even the MDC has called the ‘greed’ of ZANU PF
‘bigwigs’. SWRA Correspondent Simon Muchemwa, who this week toured farms to
see for himself the extent of the fresh wave of farm attacks, said on
Thursday the situation resembled a ‘disaster’.
“There is an obvious intensified effort by ZANU PF youths and ZANU PF
officials and the police to grab what productive land they can,” Muchemwa
said, explaining the use of fake offer letters has become rampant,
particularly in Mashonaland. He explained further that the majority of farms
he visited are lying untended and barren.
“Farmers are predicting a huge agricultural loss, because when the rains
come, the land won’t be ready,” Muchmwa said. “Their (the farmers) attitude
is to wait and see what will happen during the rains.”
AdditionAL rEPORTING: sw Radio Africa
Posted by Dave Fish Eagle
on September 25, 2009. Filed under Local News.
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