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Agriculture and food security
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2007-31
Monday August 6th 2007 - Sunday August 12th 2007
August 16, 2007

ZIMBABWE'S food security situation was a popular topic for the media during the week. However none of them adequately examined the precarious nature of this matter.

Except for a Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fewsnet) report on Studio 7, none of the 75 reports the media devoted to the topic - ZBC [33], government papers [22], the private electronic media [five] and private Press [15] - comprehensively audited Zimbabwe's food requirements and deficits. As a result, their audiences remained ignorant about how much grain had been delivered to the Grain Marketing Board, what percentage of national requirements this constituted, and how government planned to offset any shortfalls. Most of the official media's stories passively recorded official pronouncements glossing over the unstable food situation.

It was in this context that The Herald's follow-up (8/8) to revelations in The Sunday Mail (5/8) that this year's wheat farming season was a disaster simply reiterated government excuses on the projected record low crop without testing their truthfulness. For example, the paper just quoted the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) boss, Ben Rafemoyo, "partially" accepting blame for the low yields on the basis that ZESA had failed to fulfil its promise to provide adequate power to farmers. It did not ask him why ZESA had failed to do so when it had subjected urban residents to extensive power cuts on the specific pretext that it was prioritizing wheat production. There was equally no clarity on the exact amount of grain Zimbabwe had in its silos.

The Herald and Chronicle (8/8), for example, just announced that Zimbabwe was negotiating with several countries in the region as it "intensifies efforts to improve the reserves capacity" without discussing the country's grain shortfall. Neither did they seek clarification from GMB CEO Samuel Muvuti on the matter. They just quoted him vaguely saying the country would import 400,000 tonnes of maize from Malawi and was "currently relying on . . . maize imported early this year" although this did not mean Zimbabwe was "empty" and "had no locally produced maize". He was not asked how much the country had actually produced and how much of that had been received by the GMB.

Such passive reportage also typified ZTV's coverage (8/8, 7am). It reported Muvuti dismissing "speculation that the country's (grain) reserves were only enough for two weeks", adding that "the current shortages" were "being caused by other factors". Muvuti was never asked what these factors were, nor was the source of the speculation explained. However, The Herald (8/8) did quote him stating that a GMB survey showed that some farmers still had maize but could not deliver due to transport problems, adding that the current maize meal shortage was only a result of the imbalance between the high cost of packaging and the government stipulated maize meal price. Again, his claims were not verified. Earlier, Spot FM (7/8, 8pm) also presented the grain shortages as simply stemming from the parastatal's inability to distribute "imported maize and excess grain from farmers" in a timely manner.

The government media also avoided analyzing the confusion surrounding the authorities' position on white commercial farmers. For example, while Spot FM (6/8, 8pm) reported Lands Minister Didymus Mutasa and analyst Noah Mangondo disputing that government had chased away white commercial farmers, The Herald (8/8) reported Mutasa's ministry and Mashonaland East Governor Ray Kaukonde as agitating for the arrest of white farmers for allegedly resisting eviction. The paper, for example, cited Kaukonde claiming that "the crackdown on these errant farmers had long been overdue" because there was "evidence that some of the evicted farmers deliberately sabotaged the agrarian reform programme".

The truth of these claims remained untested. Instead, the official media carried several reports that simplistically depicted government as working tirelessly to ensure increased agricultural productivity in the coming farming season. For example, ZTV (6/8,8pm) quoted Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo declaring, without any substantiation, that Zimbabwe will "regain its bread basket status in the region following the government's agricultural mechanization programme". The Herald (8/8) also carried a similar report.

Despite their seemingly balanced voice sourcing patterns (Figs 1 and 2), the government media's coverage of Zimbabwe's food security remained superficial.

Fig 1 Voice distribution on ZBC

Fig 2 Voice distribution in the government Press

Studio 7 however, exposed the grim realities facing the country. The station's report (6/8) revealed that although there was a serious shortage of maize and the "GMB was having a difficult time convincing farmers to sell their maize", the government was still "reluctant to launch an international appeal for food". In a follow-up to this story, the radio reported (10/8) Fewsnet as having issued an upgraded warning on Zimbabwe's food security situation, calling it an "emergency". It cited the economic crisis, poor harvests and the "dramatic" impact of government's recent price-control campaign on the availability of food in the country, as well as restrictions on imports of basic commodities as having worsened the crisis. Fewsnet was also reported to have warned that "cereal harvests this year would meet just 55 percent of national needs", noting that GMB had only "received just 70,000 metric tonnes of maize from domestic sources since the recent harvest, plus 115,000 tonnes" of the 400,000 imported from Malawi.

The private media traced declining agricultural production to government policies.

For example, the Zimbabwe Independent (10/8) reported farming experts noting that although ZESA had contributed to projected poor wheat yields, "falling agricultural productivity was a combination of government blunders and other factors such as the shrinkage of hectarage planted each year, poor planning, lack of confidence and financing, and unavailability of fuel and other inputs." The paper also attributed low production to legislative changes, which it said had brought about "uncertainty of tenure." In addition, the private media recorded three incidents of forced evictions of white commercial farmers, their workers and newly resettled farmers in Masvingo and Matebeleland North.

Earlier, The Financial Gazette and The Zimbabwe Times (9/8) quoted the Commercial Farmers' Union denying government claims that white farmers were resisting eviction, saying they were waiting for the outcome of their applications for land lodged with government.

The private media's sourcing pattern is reflected in Fig 3.

Fig. 3 Voice distribution in the private Press

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