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Zimbabwe: Harare Show Mirrors Agricultural Collapse
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Zimbabwe Independent (Harare)
31 August 2007
Posted to the web 31 August 2007
Augustine Mukaro
Harare
THE Harare Agricultural Show is increasingly becoming irrelevant as it is shunned by both local and international exhibitors as the country's economy disintegrates.
The annual agricultural event, which will be formally opened by Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema today, is now a shadow of what it used to be when the agricultural sector formed the backbone of the economy.
Since the launch of the controversial land reform programme in 2000, the sector has been in free-fall.
The relevance of the exhibition has come under the spotlight as agricultural production continues to shrink due to government's failure to provide inputs to newly resettled farmers.
A tour of the Exhibition Park this week showed that a number of companies have snubbed this year's event, leaving the exhibition halls almost empty and a number of stands unoccupied.
Exhibition halls such as Home Industries and Rajiv Gandhi Hall, which used to be packed with indigenous entrepreneurs and farmers displaying their produce, were virtually empty. Even new farmers had nothing to showcase.
Most of the space in Rajiv Gandhi Hall was taken up by government ministries such as Energy, displaying jatropha plants, Rural Housing and Agriculture displaying model rural houses and a resettled farmer. In the Home Industries Hall, a hair saloon occupied most of the space. Various stands on the grounds had very little to showcase.
However, government has tried to make the event relevant by reintroducing the cattle section, which had stopped in 2001. It even tried to lure people into attending by allowing an auction to be conducted at the show. But the price-monitoring team ordered the sale to be cancelled.
Cattle from President Robert Mugabe's Gushungo Investments farm in Mazowe dominated the section, bringing in dairy cows, fattened slaughter cattle and breeding heifers. Gushungo Farm, formerly Foyle Estates, is one of the farms that Mugabe seized during the land reform programme.
Cattle farmers said they were hoping to sell their animals at reasonable prices.
Farmers had come to the show anticipating buying fertiliser and chemicals in preparation for the next cropping season but they could not get anything.
Observers said the recent closure of three quasi-governmental fertiliser firms revealed that there is nothing to showcase since the sector is in a state of collapse.
Dorowa Mine, Iron Duke mine and Zimphos were closed last month due to power cuts and non-availability of various raw materials, which spells disaster for food production next season. The closures mean that there will be no compound C fertiliser needed for planting tobacco. Irrigated tobacco planting is expected to start next week.
The closures are also likely to affect Sable Chemical since phosphate is one of the raw materials in the production of ammonium nitrate.
Zimbabwe's power utility company, Zesa Holdings, was at pains explaining to customers at the show the problems it faced in generating electricity.
Zesa spokesman Fulland Gwasira said Zimbabwe was only generating hydro power since its two coal-fired plants were not functioning due to coal shortages.
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Before the land reform, Zimbabwe was a net exporter of maize to neighbouring Zambia and Malawi but is now importing food from these countries to bridge local shortfalls.
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