Shocking Zimbabwean Agricultural Statistics

From Jan Lamprecht
Southern Africa in Crisis
AfricanCrisis.Org
10-13-3

I got the following information from a friend of mine who is currently doing consulting work for the Commercial Farmer's Union in Zimbabwe. These are some of the statistics from the CFU documents as at October 2003. These statistics show clearly the effect of Mugabe's madness.

General Agricultural output (For Maize, sorghum, wheat, etc)
2000: 810,000 tonnes
2003: 80,000 tonnes

Soyabeans
2000: 145,000 tonnes
2001: 162,000 tonnes
2003: 30,000 tonnes

Wheat
2000: 225,000 tonnes
2001: 282,000 tonnes
2003 0 tonnes (yes, Zero output)

Barley
Average annual production used to be: 32,000 tonnes
Now: Zero output.

Commercial Cotton
2000: 25,000 hectares cultivated producing:
Commercial output was: 60,000 tonnes
National Output was: 335,000 tonnes
2002: 5,000 hectares cultivated producing:
Commercial output was: 10,000 tonnes
National Output was: 195,000 tonnes
(Note in the above, the hectarage probably only applies to the Commercial
farmers)

Beef Cattle
2000: Females bulled: 436,000 Total head of cattle: 1,169,000
2002: Females bulled: 237,900 Total head of cattle: 708,000

(Note, I stand to be corrected, but in colonial times, the national herd was in excess of 5 million - I could be wrong - but that's as best as my memory serves me. Its been downhill for the past 30 years).....................

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