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No sadza no peace - the Zim agric balance sheet
Phil Matibe, Harare Tribune
August 17, 2008

http://www.hararetribune.com/index.php?news=320

Maize is a strategic crop that is necessary for the maintenance of social tranquility. Without the staple food Sadza- chibataura, Zimbabwe will descent into chaos. Hunger will cause men to take desperate measures in order to feed their families.

"Land is a national asset that cannot be allowed to be in the hands of any member of the opposition," a ZANU (PF) declaration as it embarked on dispossessing land and other assets from its perceived enemies. Today only persons who support ZANU (PF) and its divisive prehistoric policies are still farming in Zimbabwe.

Modern agriculture is a science and an art acquired through agricultural education and apprenticeship. The incessant regurgitation of nauseating political bovine excrement by politicians who harvest bumper yields through rhetoric at political rallies and yet reap "sora" beans on these highly productive farms will cause a massive man-made famine this year.

Tobacco

The Tobacco Industry Marketing Board (TIMB) of Zimbabwe has released its latest national tobacco sales figures, 36 332 098 kilograms (kgs) of tobacco sold thus far fetching US$116 183 389. We are at the halfway point of the tobacco selling season and if agricultural reform had been done properly 120 000 000 kgs would have been sold by now fetching US$382 800 000.00. However, this figure would have been higher for the quality of the leaf would be better. By the end of 2000 Zimbabwe had become the world's third largest producer of flue-cured tobacco, producing 267 million kgs and over 700 000 families were supported by this industry. If these levels of production had been maintained and the current world price applied Zimbabwe would have earned at least US$1 billion dollars.

A fully functional Zimbabwean economy consumes 900 million litres of diesel per annum and the proceeds from tobacco alone would have been enough, leaving extra change for the purchase of other essential commodities.

Maize

This season 2008, Zimbabwe is only harvesting 575,000 metric tonnes (MT) of maize - 28% lower than last year's yield a shortfall of 1.2 million MT. This shortfall has to be imported at a cost of US$260 per MT excluding transport and handling charges. Thus Zimbabwe has to fork out US$312 000 000.00 in order to feed the starving masses.

However before importing all this maize that could have easily been efficiently grown and harvested by 3000 commercial farmers, the nation needs to import seed, fertilizer, diesel and other farm inputs for next year's crop and harvest. Zimbabwe's fertilizer requirements are between 500,000 MT and 600,000 MT. Farmers have 60 days left in which to stock up with their seasonal inputs.

With the shortage of electricity necessary to power the country's sole Ammonium Nitrate (AN) manufacturer, Zimbabwe now needs to import AN fertilizer and all compound fertilizer at a cost of US190 per MT which shall drain US$95 000 000.00 from the fiscus.

Zimbabwe requires 50 000 MT of maize seed in order to plant 1.2 million hectares and produce 2 million MT of grain in a normal agricultural season that starts on November 15. According to the Minister of Agriculture, Rugare Gumbo, seed houses reported that they jointly hold stocks of a paltry 11 300 MT of open pollinated variety (OPV) and hybrid of maize seed from the 2007/08 agricultural season, leaving a national maize seed deficit of 38 700 MT.

Once again the treasury has to unearth US$178 020 000 for the importation of maize seed from neighbouring countries at a cost of US$4 600 per MT. Zimbabwe's seed companies have in recent years been failing to produce enough maize seed after most of their seed-producing farms were seized.

The 1988/89 season, Zimbabwe produced a bumper crop of 2.15 million MT, of which more than 800,000 MT came from the commercial sector. Commercial farmers normally produced about 30 to 40 percent of Zimbabwe's corn crop, but they accounted for up to 70 percent of output during drought years. They also produced the bulk of the corn that was exported when surpluses are available.

Wheat

Zimbabwe has failed to plant the 70 000 hectares government had earmarked for the winter wheat crop this season, managing only 8 963 hectares by May 23 2008. Zimbabwe had the irrigation capacity to irrigate 95 000 hectares of winter wheat, yielding an average of 5MT per hectare. The 450 000 MT of wheat per year required for Zimbabwe's cereal needs is now unattainable.

A measly 40 000 MT of winter wheat is expected from the hectarage planted, assuming that there is adequate electricity and that the quelea and armyworms which have been left unchecked since the commencement of "Hondo ye Minda" fiasco, do not have a field day with this winter crop. On a comparative basis, the 8 963 hectares were 10 000 hectares less that the 18 989 hectares wheat farmers planted during the same period last year.Zimbabwe needs to find forex to import 400 000 MTof wheat at US$325 per MT a total cost of US$128 000 000.00.

According to the Reserve Bank the Zimbabwean economy is expected to earn about US$754 000 000.00 from all its manufacturing, industrial and agricutural sectors and yet it needs more than US$867 000 000.00 in agricutural inputs alone for its food crops this current season excluding fuel, chemicals, labour cost, electricity and other variable costs. Before the season has started Zimbabwe has a fiscal deficit of US$113 000 000.00.

So persons, who were "empowered 100%" by ZANU (PF) through its land embezzlement programme, now fail to produce 10% of what was being produced by their fellow Zimbabweans whose land and home they illegally occupied and whose business they brutally dispossessed. The uneducated masses that had no modicum of understanding of rudimentary economics of an agrarian-based economy, destroyed the country's wealth at the behest of a few elitist politicians who now own vast tracks of land that lies idle.

The euphoria of "owning" a farm for weekend getaways has worn off, for most land invaders reality has set in. The majority of the beneficiaries now realize that agriculture is indeed a science and not a skill that you acquire by merely occupying a patch of land.

If ZANU (PF) manages to produce a quarter of the previous yields from the same land, financial and climatic conditions by which we had to farm then, I shall eat my veldskoens, for all I've learnt about agriculture over the years would have been turned on its head.

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