Drought brings political problems to villagers
March 1st, 2012
Every time a drought or erratic rains hit the country citizens suffer a double blow, the first is hunger and then they become victims of political abuse. We have seen this happening time and again in the rural areas, with politicians taking advantage of the poor and desperate citizens. It has become the norm that ZANU (PF) politicises food aid, usually provided by western donors.
The villagers of Hurungwe district say disaster is pending as the rains have been erratic and farmers in the area have not been able to access bank loans or fertilizer. Their major fear now is not the weather, but political victimization in the run up to possible elections.
The locals pray for rains, of course so their crops will grow but with an underlying plea so that politicians do not come and harass them.
“Our fear is that ZANU (PF) politicians will take advantage of the desperate situation. We know for real that they will come demanding party cards for one to access food aid. We are strongly convinced that they will do that given the election talk we are hearing from them.”
The area’s early November tobacco crop was a right off, and at the end of 2011 I saw that the early tobacco failed, they had some rain late November 26, then it dried up. The rains returned, but too late for most.
I spoke to some of the desperate villagers, one subsistence farmer lamented, “You know we depend on rains for food production here but the delays by the rains means suffering. Our first crops which we planted in November wilted and we had to replant some but much of that also wilted.”
” We will have to go to Chirundu, Charara or Kariba and look for some manual labour so that we save the lives of our children,” a certain mother of three said. I wonder what work they will find in a country where unemployment stands at over 90%.
Hurungwe was once a district renowned for its agricultural production, particularly tobacco, and it has now been reported that once again the target for production has fallen below the target of 150 million kg. Before the land invasions occurred Zimbabwe’s tobacco production stood at 236 million kg, in 2008 it dropped to 48 million kg.
Then you get the foolish Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister, Joseph Made calling for the district’s farmers to continue planting until the end of February. You just need to read the comments on the Herald’s website to see what Zimbabweans think of the man who has actively contributed to the collapse of the country’s agricultural wealth.
