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Agriculture
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2006-37
Monday September 11^th 2006 - Sunday September 17^th 2006

THIS week the official media continued to drown problems blighting farming with glowing reports of government’s efforts to resuscitate the sector.

ZBH aired 79 reports on the topic, while the government Press featured 27.

For example, ZTV (13/9, 8pm) and The Herald (14/9) passively celebrated the unveiling of a US$490 million facility for agriculture by the Reserve Bank without investigating the adequacy of the package in resuscitating the troubled sector. For example, there was no attempt to question how much the country required to finance its agricultural programmes and what percentage the latest facility represented.

Instead, ZTV merely claimed the money would "boost productivity and guarantee food security in the country" while The Herald and Chronicle (15/9) simply presented the development as "ample demonstration of the government’s commitment to revive the sector". None of the stories questioned how this facility would be different from previous failed ones.

Such passive reporting manifested itself in the official media’s coverage of the increase in the wheat producer price from $9 000 to $217 913 a tonne.

ZBH (12&13/9, main bulletins) and the official Press (13/9) simplistically projected the hike as more evidence of government’s efforts to increase production. None questioned the sufficiency of the price.

Neither did they reconcile this development with the instruction from Agriculture Minister Joseph Made to the Grain Marketing Board to continue selling "wheat to flour millers at the old price, as there was need for consumers to continue benefiting from subsidised bread price" (The Herald, 13/9). Nor did they ask him to disclose the price at which the GMB was selling wheat to millers, or how the board would finance the shortfall between the buying and selling prices.

It was against this background that reports by these media on the acute shortages of crucial inputs, such as fertiliser, fuel and power were isolated and detached from government’s poor administration of the agricultural sector.

Although the official media’s sourcing patterns appeared diverse (Figs. 4 & 5), their reports remained passively pro-government.

Fig 4 Voice distribution on ZBH

Fig 5 Voice distribution in the government Press

Apart from The Daily Mirror and The Financial Gazette’s passive coverage (14/9) of the US$490 million facility, the rest of the private media’s 11 stories continued to highlight the decay in agriculture.

The Gazette, for example, revealed that the country had sold its "smallest tobacco crop since independence – 54,2 million kilograms – in the just ended 2005/6 season further compounding Zimbabwe’s precarious foreign currency situation". It quoted the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board official Andrew Matibiri saying that although farmers were enthusiastic about producing a better crop next year, their efforts were being "hampered by shortages of inputs".

Similarly, the Zimbabwe Independent (15/9) reported Made admitting that there were grain shortages in the country.

Although the electronic private media was largely reticent on agricultural developments sector during the week, the two stories that Studio 7 aired were critical of government’s efforts to increase production.

For example, it quoted agricultural experts and the political opposition dismissing the notion that the new wheat producer price would boost production. They argued that the increase was not a lasting solution to the problems bedeviling wheat farming as farmers still faced myriad production problems such as power cuts, and shortages of fertilizer, farming implements and fuel. However, none of the media addressed the sense of announcing the producer price of a crop after it had been grown.

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