SW Radio News Africa on Zambia's bumber harvest:
Two premises contained above. The major premise - Zambia has a bumper harvest is accurate. The minor premise that this is due to white farmers from Zimbabwe can only be assessed by this FSRP resource. The evidence in that pack is pretty emphatic that the increases are across the board and small holders have contributed significantly. I can only imagine SW Radio forgot to visit the FSRP website.While farms that were once highly productive lie idle under the new ownership of ZANU-PF officials and cronies, Zimbabwe is in the process of negotiating a deal to import maize from neighboring Zambia. The tragic irony is that the crops being sought after were grown by white farmers who were illegally booted off their land in Zimbabwe. Many wound up in neighboring countries, which are now benefiting from their expertise.
Zambia used to import maize and other food items from Zimbabwe, but with the influx of some of Zimbabwe’s best farmers, they’ve once again produced a surplus maize crop. Zimbabwe on the other hand has recorded a deficit of 500,000 tonnes of the daily food staple this year.Chiredzi based farmer Gerry Whitehead described the whole situation as “disgusting”. He said: “Approximately 90% of these Zambian crops are coming from ex-Zimbabwean farmers who were forced off their land here.”
