MIXED MESSAGES !

Saturday 10th February 2007

Dear Family and Friends,

Zimbabweans have lost count of how many times we have been told that the country's land reform programme is over. At least twice a year for the past three years the statement has been regurgitated that it's over, it's done and the land is now re-distributed. At every ruling party event for the last two years, from birthday party's to annual conferences and from state funerals to political rallies, the posters have been there for all to see. Posters that say: "Now the land is ours!" or "The land is in our hands!"

It is, therefore, cause for enormous confusion to keep hearing that more farms are to be seized, more farmers and their employees are to be evicted and more food production is to be stopped. Mixed messages and confusion are the only constant aspects of Zimbabwe's agriculture seven years into the 21st century.

A week ago Lands Minister Didymus Mutasa said that farmers with the latest batch of 45 day eviction notices had to be off their properties by the 3rd of February. The Minister warned that: "those who resist leaving the farms will be arrested and face the full wrath of the law." The deadline came and went and then the Minister said : "We have, as a government, agreed to let them stay put and wind up their businesses, at least until harvest time.

" Do you have to be a farmer to know that it just doesn't work like this? Farming isn't a 45 day business or a 90 day business. It's an ongoing process where plans are made at least a year in advance when it comes to row crops, two years in advance when it comes to livestock and five or more years in advance when it comes to specialist crops like fruit and nut trees. It seems that these basic agricultural facts, seven years down the line, continue to elude the men in the ministry.

This week we heard that Agriculture Minister Dr Made who has been at the forefront of the farm seizures has been shuffled out of his post and into something called the Ministry of Agricultural Engineering and Mechanisation. Since Dr Made blamed the shortage of fertilizer last winter on a monkey that broke an electricity transformer, perhaps now he will be in a more appropriate Ministry to prevent a recurrence.

By all accounts this summer cropping season has been a nightmare for farmers. With patchy rains, shortage of fertilizer, the wrong fertilizer, insufficient fuel for ploughing and hyper inflation it is nothing short of a miracle that our farmers have been able to grow any food this summer. In just three months time winter crops should be going in the ground but who in their right mind will plant wheat this May. A 45 day eviction notice may be served at any time; an arbitrary bloke off the road may arrive and say he has an "offer letter" from the government which gives him this farm or a mob may arrive and simply chase the farmer off.

In February 2000, when this all began a loaf of bread was just 20 dollars. Now that same loaf costs 840 dollars - or in reality it is actually 840 thousand dollars - before three zeroes were slashed from the currency. Tragically there is no mixed message in the price of a loaf of bread or the millions who can no longer afford it.

Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy.