Zim: Not a Single Seed to Buy

Original Post Date: 2002-09-23  Posted By: Jan

From the News Archives of: WWW.AfricanCrisis.Org
Date & Time Posted: 9/23/2002 11:10:47 PM
Zim: Not a Single Seed to Buy

From: Cathy Buckle (Zimbabwe)

Dear Family and Friends,
Summer has arrived in Zimbabwe, the days are getting longer, the sun is
getting warmer and it’s perfect weather for farming and for sport. I sat
on the edge of a sports field one evening this week to watch my son
playing a friendly hockey game. I’m not really into sport so had taken a
newspaper to read but after an hour and a half had not even read one
paragraph as I got talking to a stranger who sat next to me. The stranger
was an 11 year old farmer’s son and when I asked him why he wasn’t
playing, my question opened a flood gate. This boy is one of thousands of
Zimbabwean children whose life has been changed forever. His parents have
been chased off their farm; the only home the boy had ever known has been
taken over and he is struggling to understand it and come to terms with
reality. He asked me if I could help him to understand some things. He
asked me why these men are doing these things to us. Why they are taking
all our things. Why they want our houses and why the police don’t do
anything to stop them. He asked me why the men grabbing farms aren’t
growing any crops and where all the food is going to come from. He wanted
to know why some of these so called new farmers are just breaking
everything in the farm houses, smashing baths and toilets off walls and
stripping roofing off houses. He asked me why President Mugabe doesn’t
like whites any more and asked me what we’d done to make him do these
awful things to us. He said that his mum had told him that he must just
try and forget the farm and that he must stop worrying but the boy just
cannot.

Now an 11 year old boy worries about if his mum and dad will get jobs in
Harare. He says they only know how to do farming and he’s not sure if they
are going to manage in other jobs. He said they’ve both had to go back to
school like him to learn other jobs. He said that all his friends are
leaving and that his best best mate had recently left for Australia.
“Who’s going to be left?” he asked me. “Why don’t our parents want to tell
us what’s really going to happen?” he asked, “why don’t they just tell us
things?” he asked with a choked voice. I didn’t have a lot of answers for
a strange 11 year old boy sitting next to me on the edge of a hockey
pitch. More than once I couldn’t stop my eyebrows from raising as I heard
words of despair, anger, frustration and deep sadness. I was amazed at the
depth of an 11 year old boy’s questions and often felt as if I was talking
to an adult. As the hockey game came to an end, the stranger and I parted.

When I left the boy was playing dinky cars with some other children in
the dusty driveway under a majestic full moon and we waved to each other.
He’d gone back to being a child and even though we’ll probably never see
each other again I hope that one day both he and I will have answers to
some of his questions.

This huge tragedy in Zimbabwe is reaching a climax now as we are just
three weeks away from the main planting season. If I was one of Zimbabwe’s
so called new farmers I would be tearing my hair out by now as there is
still not one single pip of seed maize to be bought in any of the main
farming stores in this part of the country. When we grew maize on our
Marondera farm before it was taken over, the seed and fertilizer would
already have been in the sheds waiting, the land would have been ploughed
and ready and the seasonal workers would have been recruited and be
standing by to plant by the first or second week of October as soon as the
rain arrived. I phoned the major seed maize suppliers in Marondera this
morning. None have any seed in stock and do not know when it is expected
to arrive. Even worse though, a UN humanitarian report just released says
the government’s main land preparation team have only 50% of their fleet
of tractors serviceable and available for ploughing. The report also says
that most of the so called new farmers do not have animal draught power
and in other areas there is foot and mouth disease which has drastically
reduced animal power. Agricultural experts say that at best, even with the
money government has put aside for farm inputs, only 15% of the resettled
farm land will be prepared and ready to plant with the onset of the rains.

We are at the beginning of what weather experts have predicted will be a
difficult and erratic rainy season in Zimbabwe. This would have been a
hard enough year for professional farmers and their workers who would have
been expected to feed the revised 6.8 million starving people in the
country. It is an impossible task for the so called new farmers who cannot
plough the land they have been given, have no machinery or equipment and
even if they had the money, there is no seed to plant just a fortnight or
two before the rains begin. Our government continue to deny the existence
of these cold, ugly facts though and addressing the UN summit in America
this week, President Mugabe again told Britain and other world critics to
keep out of Zimbabwe. We can only assume that he does not want anyone to
see just exactly what he has done to our once thriving land.

Until next week,
with love,
cathy.

http://africantears.netfirms.com
Copyright Cathy Buckle
21st September 2002.

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