Ashley Snyder/1/23/08/3:34pm/Food Scarcity/Post 2
My first post covered food shortages in Kenya, this one is going to cover Zimbabwe. I'm probably going to be focusing on those two countries for the remainder of my blogs if anyone is interested. I decided to start covering Zimbabwe because a co-worker of mine informed me of the food shortages and the interesting reason as to why food is scare there.
A quick summary will explain this post. Zimbabwe used to be a key grain producer and exporter in Africa before 2001, when President Robert Mugabe took control, and basically kicked out or threatened the white farmers that were on the land producing grain, and handed it over to blacks many of whom did not know how to grow grain because they have previously been landless. This in turn caused massive food shortages in a country that used to be abundant; poor planning and the misuse of land by those who are miseducated in crop growing have also turned rich soils into wastelands.
This article focuses on how the problem is still going on, even though Mugabe's government proposed a plan to end the shortages. The plan basically projected 3 million tons of maize crop, but in turn has only produced 719,000 tons. This is due to the shortage of materials needed to farm the land (fuel, seed, fertilizer, chemicals, etc.) and the rains that keep pounding the land; making it impossible to get good crop.
The FAO and WFP projects thta 4 million Zimbabweans (1/3 of the country) will need aid by the first quarter of 2008 (now.)
http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN839736.html
1 comment:
Actually, Mugabe has been President since 1980, when his Zanu-PF party successfully ousted the British government who had colonized them. A couple of years later he authorized a massacre of the Ndebele, an ethnic group in Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) that is much fewer in population than the Shona, the ethnic group Mugabe belongs to. In 2001 when he authorized the ousting of the white farmers and the seizing of their land, it was at least ostensibly for the purpose of giving land to the people who fought alongside him, the freedom fighters. They had fought for and won their freedom, but they had recieved nothing for it. The white settlers in Zim still held most of the land and most of the knowledge about farming it and equipment with which to do it. It is true that this policy has destroyed the economy of this once-viable nation, but in a way one can see his point. However, the end effect has been to cause around 3 million Zimbabweans, black and white, to flee the country, coming to America, South Africa, Great Britain, etc. Mugabe's government is so corrupt that elections set for March of this year seem of little hope to many ex-pats, who cite his blocking or corrupting of all previous elections since his rise to power. Mugabe is a prime example of the compradores we read about; while his countrymen starve, he has built a mansion of the finest imported materials, flown in on jets from China and Thailand and other places.
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