2010 agriculture projections

The union raised alarm at the continued land grab, which it warned had resulted in a serious farm labour crisis that was threatening to completely destroy the agriculture sector. Despite government assurances, there are growing concerns that continued disruption of agriculture as a result of the land redistribution efforts could lead to serious food shortages. Poor rains have also blighted the planting season, which ended last week, raising the prospect of hunger.

The Grain Producers’ Association has issued an urgent appeal to large-scale farmers to plant as much of the staple crop, maize, as possible, in an effort to alleviate the predicted problems. Months of illegal invasions of white-owned farms by government supporters have combined with rapidly escalating shortages of seeds and fertilisers to produce what the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, the FAO, describes as a “gloomy prospect”. Donors have given US$74 million dollars in aid to Zimbabwe’s traditional sustenance farmers. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation projects the country will produce 450,000 tonnes of grain, about one-quarter of the nation’s needs.

Farmers cut back on planting

Large-scale white farmers have cut back on planting, partly because of stoppages imposed by squatters, and partly because they have been denied the usual bank loans. Small-scale farmers are also likely to produce less, not least because the authorities waited more than six months before paying most of them for last year’s produce. Many of those who have been given land under what the government calls its fast-track resettlement scheme lack the resources and skills to make any meaningful contribution. The result is that the maize harvest for the coming season could well be down by a third. But the FAO says its more immediate concern is not with food security but with food access.

Getrude Hambira, secretary general of GAPWUZ said: “GAPWUZ neither condones nor encourages the current attempts to deliberately take over farms by way of murdering, attacking and intimidating workers and their employers. What further incenses us is the silence of government officials whom we feel should be there to put a stop to such heinous acts which have left thousands of farm workers homeless and in dire need of food, education, water and sanitation.” The UN says 1.9 million Zimbabweans will require food aid this year. A fresh report from the GAPWUZ says more 60 per cent of farm workers said they were tortured and forced to leave the farms that were their homes during seizures since 2000. The report says farm workers reporting such abuse outnumber their former white-farmer employers by 100 to one.