Back to Index

Agriculture
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2006-18
Monday May 1^st 2006 – Sunday May 7^th 2006

THIS week the government media again avoided open debate on the reasons behind diminishing agricultural production, especially tobacco, and its impact on food security.

Most of the 33 stories these media carried on the subject – ZBH (33) and official papers (24) – just highlighted the decline without fully explaining why.

For example, while ZBH reported that the tobacco delivered to the auction floors had greatly decreased, with only less than 100 bales of tobacco being sold since the start of selling season because farmers were not happy with poor prices, it shied away from challenging government on the matter.

ZTV (2/5, 6pm) only quoted Science and Technology deputy minister Patrick Zhuwawo, whom it disguised as an agriculture expert, simply advising the stakeholders in the sector to "resolve their differences" rather than "rush to the media".

Neither did ZBH interpret the agricultural chaos as symptomatic of the authorities’ chaotic land reforms or show curiosity at revelations by Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers’ Union president Davison Mugabe that tobacco output had dropped from 230 million tonnes in 1999 to a mere 16 million tonnes in the last season.

The government papers also typically magnified official pronouncements on agriculture or simply highlighted the problems bedevilling the sector in isolation. For instance, The Manica Post (5/5) simplistically sided with Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono in his standoff with tobacco farmers over the pricing of tobacco without taking a holistic approach to the matter. The paper just echoed Gono’s depiction of the farmers as "perpetual cry babies", saying the farmers should stop "kindergarten administrative styles" that lack focus and purpose on farms.

The Sunday Mail (7/5) provided a more guarded endorsement of the governor’s stance. It argued that though it agreed with Gono and suggestions that government should stop subsidising farmers, the "weaning process must be gradual", adding that "the world over, subsidies are common…where they exist, the national interest is the reason for their existence…"

Apart from failing to coherently handle the problems affecting tobacco farming, the government papers also carried 12 stories that regurgitated official claims distorting the gloomy agricultural outlook. These included flattering statements on the country’s food situation.

The government media’s sourcing patterns are captured in Fig 1 and 2.

Fig 1 Voice distribution on ZBH

Fig 2 Voice distribution in the government papers

In contrast, the private media continued to attribute problems in agriculture to poor planning and continued farm invasions in the 24 stories they carried on the topic.

Of these, 21 appeared in private papers and only three on private radio stations.

For example, the Zimbabwe Independent, which recorded one fresh incident of farm invasions by a ruling party MP, reported ZANU PF senator Vitalis Zvinavashe criticising government’s poor agricultural planning and calling for transparency on the food situation saying there should be "frank assessments of the country’s food requirements because people are starving".

Earlier, Studio 7 (4/5) had reported on the release of the January figures of malnutrition-related deaths of "34 adults and 29 children" by the Bulawayo city health committee.

By the weekend, The Standard cited a report by the Solidarity Peace Trust noting that the government’s alleged food boosting programme, Operation Maguta, had instead "worsened food insecurity". It said the operation had made rural communities "poorer" as soldiers "destroyed rural plot holders’ lucrative market gardens, take their harvests to the urban populations and in the case of Matabeleland South, beating up people in the fields".

The private media, as illustrated by private papers’, carried balanced opinion on the subject as mirrored by their sourcing pattern in Fig 3.

Fig 3 Voice distribution in the private Press

Visit the MMPZ fact sheet

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP