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Food security issues
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2004-19
Monday May 10^th – Sunday May 16^th

Government’s decision to stop a joint crop assessment team from two international food relief agencies seeking to establish Zimbabwe’s food needs, captured the imagination of the media in the week under review.

The Harare authorities stopped the team from the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) from completing its work on the grounds that Zimbabwe no longer needed food handouts because the country was expecting a "bumper harvest".

The move, reminiscent of the misleading declaration by Agriculture Minister Joseph Made in May 2001 (The Herald) that Zimbabweans would have adequate food during that year, seemed to replay itself this year with the same minister again predicting a surplus food output amid independent forecasts to the contrary.

Radio Zimbabwe (11/5, 12/5, 6pm & 8pm) and The Herald (12/5) quoted Made saying results from the "final crop assessment" for the 2003/2004 season showed that more than 2,4 million tonnes of maize would be produced this season. He added that if the total tonnage of sorghum and millet were to be included, the country would have more than 2,8 million tonnes of cereal, a figure he said, that surpassed the country’s requirement of between 1,5 million and 2 million tonnes.

While Made reportedly arrived at his 2001 harvest predictions on the basis of an aerial view from a helicopter, the methods used to assess this year’s crop were not disclosed. Neither would the government media challenge him to explain how and when government conducted the evaluation.

On the contrary, they quoted Social Welfare Minister Paul Mangwana simply saying the country will "not require food imports or food aid".

Again, these media did not quote alternative food experts or carry independent investigation to verify the claims.

However, the private media wondered at the timing of the mysterious development, especially as it came amid unprecedented economic turmoil less than a year before the country’s next parliamentary election.

The varied opinion accessed by these media either interpreted the government move as designed to spruce up the image of its controversial agrarian reforms or a calculated move to cause State-induced hunger among the citizenry, which it would capitalize on in the 2005 parliamentary poll to buy votes from a famished electorate.

In fact, despite the authorities’ claims that the UN food assessment team had been sent home on the basis of a projected harvest surplus, SW Radio Africa (10/5) revealed that Made had admonished the group "a few days into the mission" for being in the country "without his approval".

The radio station claimed this was in spite of the fact that "a government newspaper has seen a letter from Made’s ministry dated 30 March, 2004, inviting UNWFP officials to come and estimate the country’s food aid needs".

The report quoted journalist Andrew Meldrum attributing the reasons for the expulsion of the UN team to government’s fears that independent observations of the real crop situation in the country were likely to discredit government’s assertions that its land reforms had boosted productivity.

Meldrum reported public fears that the government intended to deliberately starve people with the aim of using the maize in its custody as a "political weapon" in the forthcoming election.

Studio 7 (14/5) supported this sentiment when it cited Amnesty International raising the same suspicions. It noted that government had "manipulated" food aid "over the past couple of years", with little regard to people’s "fundamental right to food, upon which all other rights are dependent".

So did The Zimbabwe Independent (13/5). It observed that government’s inflated crop yield projections to justify its decision to turn down food aid would leave the electorate "at the mercy of the ruling party, which in the past has demonstrated a penchant for using food as the carrot in its often vicious campaign strategy".

But the government media censored the government’s banishment of the UN crop assessment group from the country, choosing instead to celebrate Made’s projections in their reports saying the development demonstrated the success of the land reform programme.

For instance, in its comment, Bumper harvest shames detractors, The Herald (14/5) observed that the projected yields had shown that previous food shortages were not due to land reforms but "four consecutive droughts" which "coincided with the massive exercise to redistribute land".

Similarly, ZBC used government’s unverified predictions of plentiful food as a tool to "shame" Zimbabwe’s "detractors" over what they thought government’s agrarian reforms "will never achieve", ZTV (12/5, 6pm and 8pm).

Amid this euphoria, Studio 7 (13/5) reminded its listeners that last year government had made similar claims of projected good harvests only for it to make a surprising U-turn later and approach the UN for aid.

The station (12/5) also quoted Harare-based independent agro-economist Roger Mupande watering down government’s bumper harvest predictions as "surprising" since the current season had been impacted negatively by late rain, under-utilization of resettled farms and shortages of equipment and inputs.

Mupande noted that the projections would have been more authentic "if other agencies like FAO and WFP were allowed to assess the crop situation", the results of which would then be fed into the SADC Early Warning Food Systems.

SW Radio Africa (11/5), Studio 7 (13/5), The Zimbabwe Independent and The Sunday Mirror (16/5) also cited other farming experts, as revising government’s maize output forecasts for the year from the estimated 2.4 million tonnes to between 600 000 and 900,000 tonnes.

The Independent quoted the UN as describing the projected harvest as an "impossibly big figure" and a "complete nonsense".

Meanwhile, SW Radio Africa (12/5), revealed that government was working on a tobacco-for-maize deal with an unnamed American bank, to ship maize over to Zimbabwe, package it in GMB sacks and then claim it as local produce.

Likewise, Studio 7 (13/5) and the Independent reported that government was clandestinely importing maize from Zambia and storing it in Mashonaland West GMB silos.

However, Studio 7 also quoted Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers Union’s Silas Hungwe denying the allegations saying, "the government has never imported maize from Zambia".

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