Zimbabwean feed used for hungry people

“Armed men burst through the gates of my farm and hauled off the last of the
maize. I told them that the grain is for my stock and the men who work here and
their families,” a Zimbabwean farmer said -who asked to be anonymous for fear of
reprisals. “I told them that now I’ll have to slaughter my pigs because I’ve got
nothing to feed them, but they took the maize anyway”.

With just three
weeks after the signing of the power-sharing deal, militants are all too aware
that the new government will not back the policy of land seizures. The wholesale
confiscation of the 280 remaining productive farms has created a potentially
catastrophic food shortage and, in desperation, the government is seizing animal
feed and any other grain it can find.

Many rural areas – notably parts of
Matabeleland, Masvingo and Mashonaland – are already facing serious food
shortages. In the cities, shops are bare of the cheaper basic maize, and
supplies of the more expensive, refined variety are limited. Cooking oil has not
been seen in many areas for weeks. The few stores that have milk, ration
it.

The President’s critics say the situation is entirely of his making
because the farm seizures by ‘war veterans’ have left huge tracts of land
fallow.
The thousands of small-scale farmers Mugabe said were desperate to
start planting have yet to materialise.