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Discussion Forum : News and Current Events : BBC NEWS | Business | Grain shortages bite in Zimbabwe

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 BBC NEWS | Business | Grain shortages bite in Zimbabwe


[b]BBC NEWS | Business | Grain shortages bite in Zimbabwe[/b]

Zimbabwe's grain shortages are approaching critical levels despite government attempts to import from neighbouring countries, the state broadcaster has reported.
Mealie meal - the maize-derived staple in southern Africa - has been hard to come by for as much as two weeks, sources in Zimbabwe say.


The government have pretty much mismanaged the tendering process

Harare-based economist
The wholesale land seizures of white-owned farms over the past few years has slashed commercial maize production, while the shifting of black workers off those farms has left families going hungry.

State media are reporting that the first 2,000 tonnes of a 150,000 tonne maize tender are due to arrive from South Africa on Wednesday, to replenish reserves which the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation said were at "critical" levels.

But the rest of the tender has yet to be made public.

Nowhere to turn

According to local experts, the only country in southern Africa with a grain surplus - and a narrow one at that - is South Africa.

"The [Zimbabwean] government have pretty much mismanaged the tendering process," one Harare-based economist, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told BBC News Online.


For months they denied there was a need to import, and by the time the government changed its tune most of it was allocated

Harare-based economist
"There's very little on the way. For months they denied there was a need to import, and by the time the government changed its tune most of it was allocated.

"There's not much more than a week or two's supply left."

Even if the government can source more supplies, there is little foreign currency to buy it and too little transport and fuel to distribute it to the areas it is most needed, he said.

Making up the shortfall

The government now says it needs about 600,000 tonnes to make up for domestic output which fell to 1.48 million tonnes in 2000-01, from 2.04 million tonnes the previous season.

The UN's World Food Programme is appealing for $60m to help feed nearly 600,000 people in the countryside officially at risk of starvation.

And, with unemployment at 60%, inflation at 112% and three in four Zimbabweans living in poverty, the situation is thought unlikely to improve in the near future.

According to the state-owned Daily Herald newspaper, the government has seized 36,000 tonnes of maize from commercial farms who were refusing to hand it over to the Grain Marketing Board.

The GMB is now Zimbabwe's monopoly supplier.

More than 6,000 tonnes was seized from a German-owned farm, the paper said, despite efforts from German embassy staff to stop the process.

State-controlled media had accused the farm of hiding the maize, but its owners insist that they never intended to withhold the maize, and declared the stock formally on the relevant forms to the GMB.

The farm says it planned to mill the grain, but could not do so because the Zimbabwean Electricity Supply Authority failed to install the necessary transformer.

Sources in Zimbabwe said the maize being impounded was yellow maize mostly destined for animal feed, and rarely used for human consumption.

read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1775016.stm


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SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

 2008/1/29 22:47Profile
enid
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 Re: BBC NEWS | Business | Grain shortages bite in Zimbabwe

This is what happens when you get a national leader who is into witchcraft. And has been for years.

So the animals get yellow maize to eat, but the people have nothing?

I think there are three or four threads talking about grain shortage in different countries.

How long before the West gets food shortages?

God bless.

 2008/1/30 5:32Profile
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It is not being publicized very well in North American news but [b]many[/b] countries are having a grain shortage including United States and Canada. This is a HUGE problem, currently in the world we only have grain for 50 days. Grain prices are doubling in many parts of the world.

Yet wineries and oil production from grain are sky rocketing and all the fields are transferring over to these productions.

"And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and wine." -Revelation 6:6


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SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

 2008/1/30 10:02Profile
enid
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Correct me if I am wrong, but is it 50 days for the entire world?

If it is, the the scripture you quoted from Revelation appears to be here and now.

 2008/1/30 10:11Profile
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Quote:
Correct me if I am wrong, but is it 50 days for the entire world?


Yes brother this is what I was told by a brother that reads into the current news from many sources.


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SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

 2008/1/30 11:12Profile









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Enid,

In southern Africa yellow corn is considered inferior and is not eaten by people. Folks will only eat white corn. I am not sure why this is, but in the early 1980's i worked on a drought relief (food distribution) program in Lesotho and found out that even people suffering hunger will not eat yellow corn there. To eat it was to equate yourself with animals (or something like this.)

what is happening in Zimbabwe is terrible; productive farms owned for generations by white farmers being thrown off the land and handed over to inexperienced land tenants that can barely feed themselves, much less the nation. Mugabe rule has made things much worse than when whites were in control.

As far as witchcraft, all southern african tribes believe in it, and in many cases it is mixed with Christian beliefs.

thing is that subsistence farming practices that were replaced by western mechanized farming practices worked well for thousands of years before the Dutch and others colonized the region and took the land in the first place.

now the place is such a mess that i fear it will never be put right, without a miracle. In short, the people there need our prayers. Sending food relief is also needed, but from my experience the village chiefs will claim the rights to distribute this food; they will conduct a first round of distribution for the poor to satisfy the donors, and then they will put the rest of it up for sale and keep the money for themselves and their families.

bub

 2008/1/30 13:30
dbm
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 Re:

"As far as witchcraft, all southern african tribes believe in it, and in many cases it is mixed with Christian beliefs."

How do missionaries to areas where witchcraft beliefs are prevalent deal with this? Witchcraft is often intimately tied with the unofficial government in a number of areas around the world.

Folk justice relies on semi-secret societies that use psychological manipulation and poisonings to control the society. Haitian Voudoun, Mexican witchcraft (Santeria, Curanderos, Sante Muerte), and Islamic Sufi groups are all examples of this.

I'm often amazed at the Faith of missionaries willing to go into those areas and face that kind of opposition. Not only must they be Faithful in breaking down supersitions, but they also have to face the very real threat of being poisoned for interrupting the workings of the social system.

Very humbling for me living in the relative safety of the Chicago suburbs to think of the Faith it takes to confront the social realities of those areas. God works mightily to combat the Adversary.


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David

 2008/1/30 17:07Profile









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Quote:
"And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and wine." -Revelation 6:6

Well it ain't a penny I can guarantee you that. The price is going up not down. :-(

 2008/1/30 17:43





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