Zimbabwe was agriculturally self sufficient, a net agrarian exporter.
Now, Zimbabwe needs to import 100,000 tonnes of maize per month but only about 26,000 tonnes is being delivered.
It is autumn in the southern hemisphere. The summer crop was a disaster, caused both by El Niño and by the loss of production caused by the farm invasions.
It looks like there will be no winter crop.
Some of the results of the invasions were:
Turning cattle into standing crops.
Destruction of standing crops by the mobs
Dispersal of the labour force into the bush
Farmers summarily ordered off the land before the crops were harvested.
Destruction of farm infrastructure
Spread of antrhax by breaking down fences separating domestic cattle from wild herds where the disease is endemic.
Spread of hoof-and-mouth disease by moving cattle that ought to have been quarentined.
Destruction of grazing land by arson of the veldt.
This is veldt farming requiring large farms and a high level of technology.
Market gardens won't work.
Yet the farms are being broken up into small holdings and handed over to farmers who do not know how to farm the veldt. At best they are alluvial soil farmers and at worst the are party hacks who have been rewarded for thuggery instead of agrarian competence.
So, for example, we have the picture of farm familys ignoring or dismantling drip irrigation equipment and carrying water over a klick from creeks in pails.
Large number of experienced farm workers have been displaced and are living hard in the bush or sneaking into South Africa while a much smalled number of small holders are replacing them.