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Food security and agriculture
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2005-17
Monday 9th 2005 - Sunday May 15th 2005

THE government media's hypocrisy in handling problems besetting the country was also illustrated by the manner in which they covered the country's food insecurity and the chaos in the agricultural sector. For instance, while ZBH carried 44 reports on the issues, these were mere highlights of the problems haunting the agricultural sector, such as inadequate funding and inputs shortages. No attempt was made to fully discuss the underlying implications of the issues on the country's capability to produce sufficient food.

For example, although all ZBH stations (9/5, 8pm) disclosed that wheat farmers "have expressed concern over the delays by Agribank to disburse $600 billion meant for the winter wheat programme," they avoided discussing the effects of such delays on the country's wheat yield. Their dishonesty also resulted in Power FM (12/5, 6pm), Radio Zimbabwe

(13/5,6am) and ZTV (13/5,8pm) conveniently dodging the main reason why milk production had dropped from 383 million litres between 1994 and 2004 to the current 85 million litres. Instead, ZTV narrowly attributed the decline to "the prevailing difficult economic circumstances" such as the shortage of foreign currency.

Although the government papers published 24 reports exposing the pangs of distress the agricultural sector was facing, like ZBH, these were merely reported in isolation of the general decline in the agricultural sector that has taken place since government embarked on its controversial land reforms in 2000. Their failure to qualitatively examine the matter was mainly due to the papers' over-dependence on official pronouncements, leaving little room for independent verification. Fourteen stories (58%) out of the 24 stories the papers carried on the subject illustrated this trend.

For example, The Sunday Mail (15/5) story, Government in bid to avert starvation, failed to establish how the authorities would adequately ensure the survival of those threatened with famine. Instead, it passively allowed Grain Marketing Board boss Samuel Muvuti to gloss over the threat of hunger in the country by giving paltry and meaningless statistics that did not factor in the exact national requirements of those needing food relief. Moreover, the paper allowed Muvuti to avoid explaining the total shortfall of grain his board needed to import to stave off acute nationwide shortage of the commodity by using the lame excuse that it was a "security" matter.

However, in a rare moment of professional brilliance a comment in The Herald (10/5) took to task the GMB's decision to buy 36 million empty maize bags worth $144 billion for farmers this season. The paper believed that the money, which it said could buy 64 056 tonnes of maize, was "just too much money to spend on empty grain bags when most parts of the country are facing food shortages", adding that, "with a significantly reduced yield due to the severe drought, we do not believe farmers need $144 billion worth of grain bags to deliver their maize to the GMB."

The Herald comment might as well have aptly reflected the critical nature of most of the 21 stories the private media carried on the agriculture and food security. Thirteen were on private radio stations and the remaining eight appeared in the private papers. The stories continued to mainly belie the façade of well-being the authorities continue to paint in the agricultural sector and exposed the magnitude of food shortages in the country. For example, SW Radio Africa (9/5) reported that government's land officers continued to harass the few remaining white farmers in the Lowveld and that government was also planning to seize farming equipment belonging to the farmers in the same area.

The Standard (15/5) revealed that there was hardly enough maize at the GMB depot in Bulawayo to cater for increasing demand. It reported that haulage truck drivers were spending nights at the depot in the hope of getting maize but to no avail. Although the paper said it was unable to get comment from the GMB on the shortages, it however quoted ZANU PF MP for Beitbridge Kembo Mohadi saying thousands of villagers in constituency needed food aid. Similar stories appeared on Studio 7, SW Radio Africa, the Independent and The Daily Mirror (10/5). In fact, SW Radio Africa (9/5) and Studio 7 (9/5) reported that the country's precarious food situation had attracted the attention of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan who had discussed the issue with President Mugabe and expressed his plans to send an envoy to assess the situation. The government media ignored such stories.

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