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Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe soldiers seize maize from farmers

HARARE - The Zimbabwe government has stationed soldiers and police on roads leading into cities to prevent farmers from moving maize to a black market for the grain in urban areas, forcing them to instead sell to the state-owned Grain Marketing Board (GMB).

The government has also dispatched teams from the GMB into rural areas to cajole farmers to sell all excess maize to the state grain utility in a desperate bid to boost stocks of the national staple food and quash reports of more hunger this year.

ZimOnline correspondents in the main maize producing provinces of Mashonaland West, Mashonaland East, Mashonaland Central and Manicaland have for the past week witnessed security forces and GMB officials at roadblocks, rummaging through cars and public buses in search of maize which if found they would promptly impound.

It could not be ascertained when exactly the government began seizing maize it suspects may be headed for the black-market or when GMB officials began prowling rural areas cajoling farmers to sell only to the state grain company.

But GMB chief executive officer Samuel Muvuti defended the maize seizures saying it was not only lawful but necessary to prevent "unscrupulous dealers" from laying their hands on the key grain.

Muvuti, a former army colonel, said: "The legal position is that no one is allowed to sell grain (maize) to anyone except the GMB. There is nothing wrong with enforcing that lawful position because a lot of maize was being lost to unscrupulous dealers."

The Harare administration is desperate to collect all maize in the country it can lay its hands on and boost stocks after claiming Zimbabwe, which has largely survived on food aid from relief agencies since 2000, did not need help this time round because it was going to have a bumper harvest.

A bumper harvest would also be the best way to show that President Robert Mugabe's chaotic and often violent land reforms were in fact bearing fruit by ensuring food security.

But several peasants, who spoke to ZimOnline, were angry that the government was seizing their maize. Many claimed the maize was for consumption by relatives and family in urban areas where food is short and not for resale on the black-market.

"The maize was not meant for sale, some of my children live in Mutare and I was bringing them the maize for them to eat," said a man, who only identified himself as Mr Mungofa.

Mungofa was speaking just after the two-50kg bags of maize he was ferrying on bus was seized at a roadblock along the Harare-Mutare highway in eastern Zimbabwe.

Another farmer, Jairos Maromo, who had 150 kg of maize taken from him along the Harare to Kariba highway, wondered how the government could seize his maize when it had failed to provide him or his neighbours with inputs.

"It is a sign of things gone wrong when uniformed soldiers with guns force us to surrender to them maize that we grew from our own resources," said Maromo, who was allocated a plot at a former white-owned farm near Karoi town in Mashonaland West province.

Agricultural experts say one major reason why food production has continued plummeting in Zimbabwe is because the Harare administration has failed to give skills training and inputs support to black peasants resettled on former white farms.

But contrary to predictions by independent food experts and international aid agencies, Agriculture Minister Joseph Made earlier this year announced that Zimbabwe will this year harvest 1.8 million tonnes of maize, equal to annual national consumption.

Independent forecasts by groups such as Famine Early Warning Systems Network and the United States Department of Agriculture show that Zimbabwe could this year reap between 800 000 -1 000 000 tonnes of maize, leaving the hard cash-strapped country needing to import at least another million tonnes of maize.

The groups said although the country had received good rains it would still not be able to harvest enough food after shortages of seed, fertilizer and other inputs crippled planting operations.