SA farmers to help in Zim
2008-10-02 21:21
Pretoria - South African farmers will help rebuild Zimbabwean agriculture if the new government can resuscitate the stagnant sector, a senior South African farming official said on Thursday.
Once a regional breadbasket, Zimbabwe is now in the grip of
an economic crisis marked by food and fuel shortages, and the
world's highest inflation rate of more than 11 million percent.
The country faces another poor growing season this year
because seed and fertiliser has been in short supply.
Zimbabweans and relief agencies hope a power-sharing deal
signed last month between President Robert Mugabe and opposition
leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara will herald an
economic recovery.
"What we will try to do, if the agriculture sector is
stabilised again, is to definitely try to negotiate deals for
them," Lourie Bosman, president of South Africa's largest
farmers' grouping AgriSA, told Reuters.
"(That will mean) bringing expertise, bringing new supplies
which they don't have at the moment."
South Africa has one of the strongest agricultural sectors
in Africa, in contrast to Zimbabwe, where critics have long
argued Mugabe's seizure of white-owned commercial farms for
landless blacks suffocated farming.
Now most foreign aid and investment in Zimbabwean
agriculture hinges on the new government enacting democratic and
economic reforms.
The US Agency for International Development's (USAID)
Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET) said in an alert
last week Zimbabwe could run out of basic food grains by early
November as imports have been insufficient to make up for
another disastrous harvest this year.
It said food imports had to triple between now and March
2009 from the current average of about 8 786 tonnes a week.
"Their agriculture sector has been ruined completely. There
is just about no agriculture sector left," Bosman said.
Tsvangirai, who will become prime minister in a new unity
government, said its first action would be to "stop the
devastating food shortages" and to "unlock the food already in
our country and distribute it to our people."
But the stalled allocation of cabinet ministries has delayed
the much-anticipated economic recovery programme.
South Africa's government said last month it would "do
everything necessary" to help revive Zimbabwe's agriculture
before the start of the summer rains.
It said it would send a task team led by its treasury,
agriculture and foreign ministries, working with other Southern
Africa Development Community (SADC) countries, to develop an
emergency intervention plan to lift the sector.
Thousands of white farmers have fled Zimbabwe since the land
seizures began in 2000. Farmers' groups said their members were
attacked after elections held in March.
"We cannot persuade (farmers) to return but we can persuade
people to invest," said Bosman.
- Reuters
- Reuters