IVZ media thread, page-6200

As promised, I am providing a heads-up about the looming famine in Zimbabwe for background information.

This famine is entirely due to ZANU-PF incompetence, greed and corruption. Once again they will beg and demand food aid from EU and USA - even as they demonize the same western countries for sanctions.
Note that very little food aid will come from the ZANU-PF's second world BRIC handlers - China, Nigeria, Russia, Algeria and so on.
And, one again the ZANU-PF will boast that "they" have provided the food aid, often faking or disguising it's true origins.

A snippet from United Nations World Food Program (WFP) as reported in AfricaNews;
Once a food exporter, Zimbabwe has relied heavily on donor aid to feed its population in recent years. Agricultural production also fell sharply after the seizure of white-owned farms under former President Robert Mugabe starting in 2000, but it has begun to recover.

The United States Agency for International Development, the U.S. government's foreign aid agency, has estimated, through its network of famine early warning systems, that 20 million people in Africa will need food aid between January and March. Many people living in areas of greatest concern, such as Zimbabwe, southern Malawi, parts of Mozambique, and southern Madagascar, will not be able to feed themselves until early 2025 because of El Niño, USAID said.

Erdelmann said WFP received an $11 million grant from USAID.Zimbabwe's government says the country has grain reserves to last until October, but it has acknowledged that many people who have failed to harvest enough grain and are too poor to buy food on the markets are in dire need of help.Prices of basic food items are skyrocketing across the region, USAID said, further impacting people's ability to feed themselves.Zimbabwe has already acknowledged feeling the effects of El Nino in other areas after 100 elephants died in a drought-hit wildlife park late last year.

And a personal observation from the excellent Cathy Buckle's latest blog;
Only four villagers out of a hundred managed to grow a harvestable crop in my home area this season. The wet season is almost over in Zimbabwe. We’ve only had 16 inches of rain here and normally get around 34. We might be very lucky and receive another 4 inches before the end of the season in a few weeks’ time but for the maize (corn) crops it’s far too late.

While Zimbabwe looks out of the window at the catastrophe of a completely devastated, sunburnt crop devoid of cobs, the Zimbabwe government are very busy blustering about America’s Magnitsky sanctions which are targeting three companies and eleven individuals here. A statement from the Whitehouse said: ‘Today we are refocusing our sanctions on clear and specific targets.’ They named Zimbabwe’s President and his wife, the Vice President, Defence Minister, Deputy Director of the CIO (Central Intelligence Organization) and others. Describing a ‘criminal network of government officials and business people who are responsible for corruption or human rights abuses against the people of Zimbabwe, they said: ‘The United States remains deeply concerned about democratic backsliding, human rights abuses, and government corruption in Zimbabwe.’

‘Sanctions,’ the old villager said to me when me met this week, ‘sanctions mean nothing when you haven’t got any food to eat.’ ‘How did you do it,’ I asked James, one of the four people in his village who had managed to grow a crop in a drought like this. He chuckled, a big smile spreading across his face. ‘I remember what my Dad taught me,’ he said. James imitated his Dad when he said ‘, don’t you listen to the voices on the radio, and don’t trust the forecasts. Just know James that the first rain in Zimbabwe always comes in October, anytime in October. ‘Be ready,’ my boy,’ and James always is. He laughed and looked up at our bright blue March sky. ‘They all think I’m penga (mad) in the village’ he said. ‘I’ve seen them shaking their heads and laughing when I go out there planting maize in the scorching October sun when there’s not a rain cloud anywhere.‘

James dry planted his field on the 12th October 2023 before the rains came and five days later an inch and half of rain (38mm) fell. It was enough to germinate the seeds and see them through to the next rain which fell three weeks later. James’ harvest will just be enough to feed his small family of three until the next harvest and even have a bit spare to help a desperate neighbor here and there.
Under the shade of a big green tree James told me many other wonderful stories about his old Dad who had been born in 1935. I had been fortunate enough to know his Dad for the last twenty years of his life and we had shared many a good laugh. Eventually James and I got back to where we started which was talking about how people are going to survive with no crops to harvest this April. Agriculture officials have described the bulk of the 2023/2024 maize crop as a complete write off.

Buying processed maize in town for around US$8.50 for a 10 kg bag, a family of four will need 3 bags a month. ‘A medium goat,’ James declared showing me a height around his calf, ‘that’s what people will have to sell every month to buy enough maize. But they’ll need to sell three goats a month to buy everything else they need.’

Just before we parted James and I remembered the absurdity of the day in 2005 when we had seen all the bags of international food aid being given to people in long winding queues. We had laughed so much that day after watching government officials opening USAID bags behind a big tree and tipping the contents into Zimbabwean bags instead, so no one would know where the maize had come from. ‘As if we didn’t know,’ we chuckled.
James and I both laughed at the memory and soon had to go our separate ways, our laughter lingering in the wind for a brief moment before it was gone. So many stories, so much we’ve all been through in Zimbabwe in the past 24 years, and so much pain.