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Food
security and agriculture
Media Monitoring
Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from the Weekly Media Update 2004-4
Monday
January 26th – Sunday February 1st 2004
The debate on
the Central Bank’s new monetary policy, which has dominated media
space since its launch last year, has distracted the media from
fully reporting other pertinent issues, such as the country’s food
security.
The government-controlled
media appeared to be the worst culprits in this regard as their
coverage on the matter was mainly characterized by inconsistencies.
For example, out of the eight stories ZBC carried forecasting agricultural
output for the 2003/4 season, three predicted good harvests and
the rest famine. No effort was made to reconcile the two extremes.
Despite the
government media’s contradictions over the farming fortunes of the
current agricultural season, they continued to gloss over the lack
of production on farms.
Power FM, (29/10,
6am) for example, reported that the Land Bank had received $50billion
from government as part of an initial $165billion allocated for
lending to farmers. There was no attempt by the station to establish
how many farmers had so far benefited from such funds. Instead,
the announcement was followed by positive reactions from the Zimbabwe
Farmers’ Union (ZFU) President, Silas Hungwe, who said the gesture
"shows that government was committed to the success of
land reform", (ZTV, 26/01, 6pm and Radio Zimbabwe,
26/01, 1pm). ZBC did not explore Hungwe’s concern that the "money
should be used by real farmers and not used for dubious purposes".
Although the
private media gave the topic scant attention, they at least tried
to inform their audiences of the country’s perilous food insecurity.
For example, The Standard (1/2), quoting a recent Famine
Early Warning Systems Network (FewsNet) survey, revealed that Zimbabwe’s
2003/4 season is likely to produce a harvest of between 800,000
to 900,000 tonnes, or 33 and 38 percent below the national cereal
requirement for the country.
In another report,
the paper revealed that the country was already importing wheat
because "the domestic supply of wheat, harvested in November,
was now exhausted" since only 80,000 tonnes of the
crop out of a normal requirement of 350,000 tonnes was produced.
ZTV (27/01,
8pm) would not openly admit this. It only reported that government
was making efforts to "overcome grain deficits through
winter cropping".
The implied
acknowledgement of grain shortages found greater impetus when Agriculture
Minister Joseph Made was quoted in the same bulletin as admitting
there was a "possibility" of a
drought and that government should intervene with "supplementary
irrigation".
But while the
government media papered over the real nature of the country’s food
security situation, The Daily News (30/1) was more explicit.
It reported that the latest FewsNet statistics revealed that the
number of people needing food aid had risen to 7,5 million, up from
the previously estimated 5.5 million. The paper quoted the World
Food Programme (WFP) spokeswoman, Makena Walker, explaining that
the rapid economic decline, closure of factories and industries
and high inflation had caused the upsurge in the figure. The
Standard also carried a similar report.
Amid such revelations
of widespread poverty in the country, The Daily News and
SW Radio Africa (27/1) reported that the government-run Grain Marketing
Board (GMB) was stockpiling 240 000 tonnes of maize harvested last
year.
Even The Herald
(30/1) story, State buys 70 000 tonnes of maize from S. Africa
confirmed the report and quoted GMB chief executive Colonel
Samuel Muvuti saying the maize was kept as "strategic
reserves for the nation and can only be released if a distress call
is raised".
However, instead
of challenging him on why government was not releasing the food
in the face of such prevalent starvation, the paper allowed him
to describe The Daily News report as "mischievous
and designed to malign the Government and give the impression that
it was being insensitive to the plight of the people".
Despite the
adverse effects of land reform programme on the country’s food security,
Made warned of more land seizures saying, "the land war
is far from over… the enemy is still out there", The
Herald (29/1)
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fact sheet
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