Zim faces more food shortages

The governments decision to abandon the inflation-wrecked Zimbabwe dollar for the American dollar and the South African rand that helped stablise the economy has had a damaging impact on farming, with farmers unable to raise hard cash to buy inputs, while banks were only able to provide a paltry 20 percent of funding required by farmers, according to the World Bank.

In a paper submitted at a two-day conference on agriculture held in Harare the World Bank said: Commercial banking (sector is) estimated to supply a meagre 20 percent of farmer financial requirements. Other financing sources that include microfinance institutions, state support, NGO support and farmers own finance have all succumbed to the erosion effects of inflation.

Zimbabwe, which has faced food shortages since 2001 has in previous seasons failed to raise food production because of violence on commercial farms that are the countrys biggest producers, poor weather and an acute shortage of seed and fertilizer because of a poor performing economy that failed to manufacture adequate quantities of the key inputs.

While violence has persisted on white-owned commercial farms, a failed farming season this time round will be chiefly because of a lack of funding that has seen farmers unable to purchase inputs that are readily available in most shops across the country but are too expensive for most growers.

Charles Taffs, vice president of the Commercial Farmers Union that represents mostly white farmers, described the new season as a looming disaster because of under-funding.

An initiative by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to provide seed and fertilizer packs to about 600 000 communal farmers has been hit hard by a dilapidated road system that has delayed deliveries, raising fears that the inputs will reach some areas well after the planting period.

Once one of the highest producing in Africa, Zimbabwes farming sector is a shadow of its former self, crippled by President Robert Mugabes chaotic and often violent land reform exercise that displaced established white commercial farmers and replaced them with either incompetent or inadequately funded black farmers.