Posted on 01/31/2006 6:07:14 PM PST by blam
Zimbabwe crops fail despite good rain
By Peta Thornycroft in Harare
(Filed: 01/02/2006)
Food crops in Zimbabwe have failed again despite ample rainfall.
Zimbabwe is expected this year to grow less than half of what it needs to feed the population and the rains have denied President Robert Mugabe his standard explanation of poor weather for slumping production.
Foreign exchange-earning crops, such as tobacco, flowers and coffee, are now almost too small to count.
More than 20 million acres of Zimbabwe's well-developed agricultural land has been confiscated from about 4,000 experienced white farmers since 2000 and handed to Mr Mugabe's cronies, senior civil servants and members of his extended family.
About 90 per cent of that land is now fallow and the infrastructure is destroyed. Hendrik Olivier, the director of the Commercial Farmers' Union, said: "We have seen good rain which fell on time but there were serious shortages of fertiliser, fuel, and seeds. In some areas, maize planting, which should have ended a month ago, is still continuing."
Of course, mugabe blighted the crops. It always does.
Hell hath no fury like an insane dictator.
Must be bad juju, couldn't be anything wrong with the farming techniques of the new landowners.
Good rain, bad farmers.
Those evil, racist white farmers refused to teach Mugabe's thugs proper farming techniques before they fled for their lives with only the clothes on their backs.
Funny thing, Cain couldn't farm either after he had spilled the blood of abel on the earth.
"confiscated" is the polite way of describing what happened. Many farmers were beaten and murdered. Many of their families were raped, including the children.
You mean Marxism really doesn't produce anything except grinding poverty? I am shocked.
It takes a white man to grow crops in Africa. I once visited Africa and I raised my hands in the air and you could see little green sprouts coming out of the heretofore barren soil.
Owning some honest white mans farm dont make you a farmer.
Good rain, bad reign.
The peculiar part is that the cronies aren't getting much out of the deal. They now own agricultural land that isn't producing a crop. What a valuable asset! And it brings in so much income each year!
I don't understand. Can't Mugabee just order the crops to grow and then there will be enough food? Isn't that the magic way communism works?
Just ask the Palestinians. They've done a great job after they took over from the Israelis.
That's more believeable than that you pee'd on the ground and as you were peeing the Green Giant was blessing the fruits of the earth with growth. :D
Venezuela and Bolivia will find out.
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