Lack of fuel hampers gathering of harvest

Zimbabwe's chronic fuel shortage has hampered deliveries of up to 100,000 mt of maize from small farmers to the country's official maize storage points, prompting an urgent call for the army to use its trucks to move the much-needed grain. "The Grain Marketing Board (GMB) did not have enough fuel and couldn't help transport the maize, so I proposed alternative forms of transport, like asking the army to use their trucks," vice president of the Zimbabwe Farmers Union, Wilfanos Mashingaidze, told IRIN on Thursday. The ZFU represents mainly communal and resettled farmers, many of whom do not have resources or credit facilities, and cannot afford to purchase trucks or fuel. "They [the army] must collect it before the rains start or the maize will go off. The growers also need to get paid, so that they can cover their costs, like labour," Mashingaidze added. Most of the affected farmers are based in Mashonaland West. By law, farmers can only sell their maize to the GMB, which also controls the prices. Government press spokesman Edward Mamutse told IRIN that although the GMB formed part of a pool of parastatals and government departments with preferential access to the country's limited fuel supplies, there was not always enough to go around. "The fuel shortages are widespread, you can't single out just one institution," he said. A defence spokesman told IRIN they could only act once they had received a formal request for assistance. According to the Famine Early Warning System Networks (FEWSNET), Zimbabwe faces a serious deficit in its maize supplies for the coming year. A recent report stated the total cereal gap for the 2003/4 marketing year as 738,464 mt, of which 671,424 was maize. Maize was becoming less visible on the market, the report noted, and although prospects for rain were good for the coming planting season, production would still be limited because of the shortage of agricultural inputs. Zimbabwe has faced a food crisis over the past two years, brought on by the impact of drought and the government's land redistribution programme. A lack of foreign exchange has also led to severe fuel shortages.