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Agricultural chaos
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2006-14
Monday April 3^rd – Sunday April 9^th 2006

THIS week the government media refracted the truth about Zimbabwe’s turbulent agricultural sector in 131 stories they carried on the matter, 41 of which appeared in government papers and 90 on ZBH.

This was largely illustrated by the way they just highlighted the problems afflicting the sector in isolation of their root causes. For example, none of these media linked the problems to government’s chaotic land reforms, which has resulted in the dramatic decimation of commercial farming since 2000. Instead, they simplistically depicted government’s piecemeal measures as the panacea to Zimbabwe’s production woes.

As a result, there was no in-depth analysis on the value of government’s purported efforts to turn around the agricultural fortunes through its new producer prices for grain and tobacco or on the adequacy of the $3 trillion it plans to invest in the production of this year’s winter wheat crop. For instance, The Herald (8/4) comment touted the increase in the maize producer price from $2m to $35m per tonne as a measure that would "restore the viability of maize as a commercial crop" and act as "the catalyst the country was looking for to kick-start economic revival efforts".

However, the paper would not fully relate this to the hyper inflationary environment, which has since breached the 900 percent mark and seriously threatens the living standards of Zimbabweans. It would also neither investigate the source of the money to finance the new prices nor discuss the ripple effects of the development on line industries and consumers.

Such was the official media’s single-mindedness in endorsing government efforts that ZTV’s evening bulletins (5/4) distorted farmer organisations’ guarded comments on the new producer prices and presented them as unquestioningly approving of the development.

In fact, most of the agricultural experts and farmers’ organisations cited by the national broadcaster were actually quoted worrying about the severe shortages of fuel, inputs and irrigation equipment as compared to "welcoming" the winter wheat financial support or the grain producer prices. However, ZBH still presented them as having "hailed" the government’s moves.

The national broadcaster’s determination to subordinate the farming community’s concerns to government plans was demonstrated by the way ZTV (6/4, 6pm and 8pm) failed to link Vice President Joice Mujuru’s demands for farmers to revise upwards their winter wheat target of 400 000 tonnes to the inputs shortages riddling the sector. The station quoted Mujuru strongly describing the tonnage as "unacceptable".

Neither would The Herald and Chronicle (3/4) and ZTV (6/4, 8pm) ask Security and Land Minister Didymus Mutasa why at least 220 A2 farms in Manicaland were still lying idle if government’s land reforms were such a success story.

Rather, ZBH passively carried several stories on official rhetoric either advocating greater support to agriculture or demanding more commitment from farmers without explaining how this was possible in a sector riddled with numerous problems.

Nineteen of these calls alone (ZTV [12], Spot FM [4] and radio Zimbabwe [5]) were centred on statements made by Mujuru during her tour of various "developmental projects" around the country. The reports, basically itineraries of the vice president, were presented as news stories.

The official media’s uncritical approach also saw the government papers passively report on the accelerated decline in tobacco production. Though The Herald carried three stories that painted a gloomy picture of the tobacco sector, including revealing that the current projected tobacco yields of 50 million kg was a huge drop from more than 200 million kg the country produced in 2000, it would not acknowledge that the production was actually achieved before government’s land occupations reduced prime farming land into wasteland.

This was in spite of experts’ concerns about the government’s "inconsistent policies and implementation problems", which they claimed had resulted in "most of the infrastructure" being left "in the hands of non-tobacco growers" thereby hampering "growth and productivity" in the sector (The Herald 5/4).

The paper even reported Tobacco Auction Floors representative Wilson Nyabonde as advising the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Land and Agriculture that the situation was so bad that if the plummeting production remained "unchecked", it could lead to the closure of Zimbabwe’s auction floors.

Still, the official Press would not take the authorities to task over these problems or view them as reflective of government’s failed agricultural policies.

Rather, The Herald and Chronicle (7&8/4) merely hailed the "36-fold" increase in the tobacco support price and simplistically presented it as a remedy for the ailing sector.

The official papers’ unquestioning nature was mirrored by their dependence on government officials as shown on Fig 1.

Fig 1. Voice distribution in the government Press

Although ZBH carried varied opinions on the matter as shown in Fig 2, these views were largely used in the context of praising government’s purported support of agricultural revival in the country.

Fig. 1 Voice distribution on ZBH

The Mirror stable was no different. Most of its stories either rehashed official statements or endorsed government policies on agriculture without any independent analysis of the problems afflicting the sector.

For instance, The Daily Mirror (6/4) blindly "applauded" government’s "sterling efforts to meet farmers’ demands" by announcing the new maize producer price, saying though farmers were asking for $55m per tonne, "$31,3 million is somewhere near this". It then tried to downplay some farmers’ reservations over the new prices saying, "an increase from $2 million to $31 million is no minor adjustment" as it would "ensure that the prices enable farmers to return to the land".

The next day, the paper would not reconcile Mutasa’s claims that food shortages were a result of droughts and not official policies with his revelation -in the same story- that chaos still marked government’s land reform programme.

However, the rest of the private media did not see any concrete benefits accruing from government’s recent action. Rather, they continued to categorically ascribe the decline in agricultural production to government’s failed agricultural policies in most of the 19 stories they carried on the subject (Studio 7 [6] and private papers [13]).

The Financial Gazette (6/4), for example, attributed problems in the sector to "lack of forward planning, upside-down priorities and certain government policies that have no basis in realities whatsoever".

It also dismissed official claims on the causes of food shortages, saying instead, they were a consequent of government’s "lack of strategic planning…and the costly effects of poor preparations than with intermittent droughts", adding that the projected low yields "against a background of…one of the best seasons in terms of rainfall, confirms this".

The Zimbabwe Independent (7/4) columnist Eric Bloch concurred. He argued that if government had embarked on its land reforms "non-confrontationally, cooperatively with the pre-land reform farmers, and with the international community instead on domineeringly, arrogantly and despotically", they could have been "a great success".

Earlier, Studio 7 (5/6) contented that the new maize producer price would not lead to any greater production and quoted agronomist Roger Mpande arguing that the new price was "…little in terms of the actual income coming back to the farmers."

The private media’s sourcing patterns are shown in Fig 3 and 4.

Fig 3 Voice distribution in the private Press

Notably, all of the government voices were in the Mirror stable.

Fig. 4: Voice distribution on Studio 7

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