When the rains begin to fall in the next few weeks many rural households will have no seed to sow; they would have eaten it all.
From the Editor’s Desk with Nevanji Madanhire
In Shona folklore there is always a character called Dyembeu, one who eats seed; he is always the laughing stock of the village. But this is no longer a laughing matter; the food crisis in some parts of the country has become so dire people eat whatever is available, even if that, like seed, is the only thing that can take them out of their situation.
Last week Minister of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development, Joseph Made urged the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) to quickly move 10 000 tonnes of maize to Matabeleland North, Matabeleland South, Masvingo and some parts of Manicaland. One of the reasons he saw this as particularly urgent was that the villagers in these Godforsaken areas would begin to eat the seed given to them as inputs.
This would be laughable if it wasn’t so tragic. The villagers have little choice; if they don’t eat the seed they die, if they eat the seed they die! So, eating the seed hits them in two ways. The seed is treated with deadly chemicals to kill pests, making it almost impossible to clean off the chemicals to make it safe for human consumption. And, after eating the seed, they have destroyed their planting season before it has even started. So, a vicious cycle has been created.
For this reason, government should declare the food crisis a national emergence. Government would have us believe that there is grain in the GMB silos and the problem is purely a logistical one namely, that the GMB does not have the trucks, and probably the fuel, to move the foodstuffs to the areas affected. We know the problem is much deeper than that; the silos are empty! That is why as early as last May, President Robert Mugabe described the food situation as the worst in living memory. He said this when he launched the Food and Nutrition Policy in Harare. Earlier in the year he had appealed to his Zambian counterpart Michael Sata for assistance. Sata promised to help by supplying 150 000 metric tonnes of maize without payment.
Now it appears Sata has reneged on that promise, plunging Zimbabwe deeper into crisis.
The Zimbabwe government on its own cannot dig itself out of this crisis. After the resounding but disputed July 31 elections victory, expectations among the rural folk that government will deliver are very high. After decades of immiseration, in which food aid was distributed on party political lines in areas such as Matabeleland North and Matabeleland South, the picture has changed dramatically; these areas voted overwhelmingly for the ruling party, and they will demand their pound of flesh. Government does not have any excuse for failure to deliver.
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Humanitarian crises can only be solved through a global effort. That means the government has little choice but to appeal to anyone on the globe who can help. Obviously this isn’t going to be easy considering the situation Zimbabwe finds itself in. Zimbabwe has, in the past 14 years polarised the world and, in so doing, audaciously created enemies where it should have created friends.
A miniscule economy such as Zimbabwe cannot afford to have enemies in any part of the globe, let alone in those parts where its economy is not even a golf ball standing against a soccer ball, but merely a pinhead.
Interestingly, in spite of everything we hear about the West’s demonic attributes and its intractable pursuit for re-colonising Zimbabwe, most donor funding comes from that direction as the table below shows.
Early this month the US government provided US$10 million to the UN World Food Program (WFP) to support humanitarian food needs in Zimbabwe during the October to March season, when the food crisis bites most. In total, the US government has contributed US$25 million to WFP for this year’s humanitarian food operation, which will feed approximately 1,8 million food-insecure people in Zimbabwe. It is estimated that 2,2 million people are in need of food aid.
Other Western countries have also chipped in, in a huge way. It is Zanu PF’s position that the West in its benevolence has ulterior motives, one of which is to change the regime in Harare. But many analysts believe the Zanu PF government just might be playing into the hands of its perceived enemies by maintaining its hard-line stance.
Early this month, Minister of Finance, Patrick Chinamasa, was in Washington seeking assistance from the IMF, which refused to provide new funding to Zimbabwe until it clears its arrears. Chinamasa’s sojourn should have provided a clear insight into the state of Zimbabwe’s finances. Next time Chinamasa revisits Washington, one can bet, he will literally be cringing in his approach and if the Bretton Woods institution concedes, the conditions will be so tough it will hit the country’s sovereignty hard.
The food crisis should be solved holistically now before the people become too hungry and too angry to accept political posturing. For starters, government should openly seek donor aid from those willing to assist without conditionalities.
