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Agriculture and Food Security
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2005-37
September 26th - October 1st 2005

THE government media generally shied away from discussing Zimbabwe’s precarious food situation and the chaotic preparations for the new farming season in 46 stories they carried on the subject. For example, none of the government media’s 12 stories on food security fully acknowledged the severity of the matter. Neither did they link it to government’s chaotic implementation of land reforms or its continued reluctance to appeal for international humanitarian aid.

Instead, the stories merely portrayed government as having enough resources to import grain without giving evidence. For instance, although ZTV (30/9, 8pm) reported President Mugabe’s assurance that government had "placed orders to meet our food requirements between now and the next harvest" it did not verify his attribution of the continued scarcity of the product to problems in the "system of distribution, which is occasionally disrupted by prevailing fuel shortages".

Rather, ZTV and its counterparts carried five stories that portrayed government as having made a timely intervention by providing enough fuel, seed and fertiliser for farmers. But no statistics were provided to give credence to the claims. The government media’s passive coverage of the agricultural problems was also evident in the way they skirted reporting on the new wave of farm invasions. They only covered the matter in the context of Gono’s reactions to the invasions, which he condemned as disruptive to the economy (The Herald 30/9 and ZTV30/9, 6pm).

However, The Sunday Mail introduced a new angle to the chaos in the farming sector when it reported that High Court judge Justice Bharat Patel had ruled that offer letters issued to new farmers by government under the land reforms before the enactment of the Constitutional Amendment (17) Act 2005 were now invalid.

This followed an application by a white-owned commercial firm to evict three new farmers from their Farnley Farm in Chegutu. Although the paper reported that the rulings had created "a new wave of uncertainty among scores of new farmers whose land is being contested", it quoted Justice Minister Chinamasa saying those affected will be reissued with new offer letters. He did not say when, but hinted at more "legislative intervention" if need be, adding that the court actions "were last-ditch attempts" by former white commercial farmers to scuttle land reforms.

The government media’s dependence on official opinions is reflected by its sourcing as illustrated in Fig 1 and 2

Fig 1 Voice sourcing in the government Press

Fig 2 Voice distribution on ZBH

Government’s policies on agriculture were only articulated in the private media, which carried a total of 19 reports: private papers (9), Studio 7 (7) and SW Radio Africa (3).

The stories included highlighting the plunging poverty levels, diminished food production and the fresh spate of farm invasions.

The Financial Gazette comment, for example, blasted government for projecting land reforms as "a weapon for settling racial and political scores instead of moulding it into a genuine avenue of redress for those negatively affected by historical injustices".

SW Radio Africa (28/9) noted that the country’s "violent land grab" and "general lawlessness" had discouraged investment and caused serious foreign currency shortages. Adding their disapproval of the farm grabs were the IMF and World Bank, which the Sunday Mirror reported as having urged government to address the matter "immediately" if the country’s economy is to get back on track.

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