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Another Hungry Year For Zimbabwe

Lawrence Ndlovu - 5/22/2007

HARARE- Zimbabwe should brace for bread shortage during the course of the year as the country has put only a tenth of the projected hectarage under wheat crop ahead of the 31 May deadline highlighting the chaos in the agricultural sector. Shadreck Mlambo, permanent secretary in the ministry of Agriculture told a portfolio committee on Land and Agriculture that a paltry 8000 hectares had been put under crop against a target of 76 000 as the planting season comes to an end on Thursday next week (31 May).

Mlambo told the stunned lawmakers that putting land under crop after the cut off date was ill advised as this would reduce yields. Mlambo¢s revelations comes at a time the majority of Zimbabweans are gruelling under power cuts introduced early this month to cater for winter wheat programme.

James Jonga, director of the District Development Fund, a government agency that provides tillage to farmers told the committee that it was unattainable to till 2000 hectares a day to meet the target as the tractors fleet had been depleted over the years. According to Jonga, the parastatal requires at least 1000 tractors to attain that feat. Currently DDF has 240 tractors with some of them grounded due to lack of spare parts.

This development is likely to further suffocate the baking industry currently fighting with government for the removal of price controls. Dozens of bakers have closed shops since the beginning of the year citing unviable conditions. Bread is a controlled commodity whose price is determined by the government.
Zimbabwe requires at least 350 000 tonnes of wheat annually, with the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) saying at best Zimbabwe would harvest 50 000 tonnes.

The CFU, an organisation representing the interests of commercial farmers says that a continued wave of farm invasions have affected production on the farms and at least 30 of their members were forced to stop planting by invaders.

Zimbabwe, once the bread basket of the region is now a hopeless basket case following the spectacular collapse of the agricultural sector. Once the mainstay of the economy, Zimbabwe agriculture took a battering over the past seven years after government allowed liberation war heroes of the 1970s to invade commercial farms. Dubbed the fast track land reform to redress colonial injustices, farm invasions have led to low output as the new breed of farmers have neither the skills nor wherewithal to be successful farmers.

Analysts say the failure to import adequate hectarage under crop would means that the central bank will print money to import wheat further fuelling inflation. Inflation climbed to new highs last month touching off at 3 700 percent a 1 500 percentage increase from the previous month.

Zimbabwe will have to import maize after a disastrous agricultural season produced only 500 000 tonnes against an annual requirement of 2.4 million tonnes. Analysts put the blame on President Robert Mugabe government for the economic woes. But the 83 year old leader in power since independence from colonial rule in 1980 denies the charge instead blaming illegal sanctions and successive droughts for the country woes.