The West wants our farmers to fail - Robert Mugabe

STATEMENT BY HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF ZIMBABWE, COMRADE ROBERT GABRIEL MUGABE, AT THE UNITED NATIONS WORLD FOOD SUMMIT, ROME, ITALY: 16TH - 18TH NOVEMBER, 2009,

Your Excellencies, Heads of State and Government,
Your Excellency, Mr Ban Ki Moon, Secretary General of the .. United Nations,
Your Excellency, Dr Jacques Diouf, Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation,
Heads of Specialised Agencies of the United Nations, £S Distinguished Delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Comrades and Friends.

At the first World Food Summit in 1996, we set ourselves the goal of reducing, by the year 2015, the number of food insecure people in the world by half. Regrettably, nearly 13 years later, that number has actually increased to an estimated 1 billion, the majority of whom are in developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.

Our summit should thus honestly and critically examine the root causes of this food insecurity in many parts of the world and lead us to adopt concrete proposals for resolving them. The factors militating against food security in developing countries include the negative impact of climate change; scarcity of or inaccessibility to land; the rising costs of agricultural inputs; lack of resources to finance farming activities; the trade-distorting agricultural subsidies paid by the industrialised countries to their farmers, and poor agricultural support infrastructure. Add to this, denial of market access to agricultural products from developing countries and that completes the host of factors which undermine crop production, in our countries.

Of these challenges, climate change has had the most devastating impact especially in Africa. In the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, for the frequency and severity of droughts and floods intensified over the last ten years, undermining the region's ability to attain the Millennium Development Goals and the targets of the 1996 World Food Summit. Population growth, urbanisation, pre- and post- harvest losses and problems of food hygiene also affect the quality and safety of food supplies in developing countries.

We in Zimbabwe have come to realize that besides adverse nature and ruinous agricultural policies of powerful nations, there is also the challenge of punitive policies of certain countries whose interests stand opposed to our quest for the equity and justice of our land reforms. We face very hostile interventions by these states which have imposed unilateral sanctions on us. This has had a negative impact on our farmers who, according to our neo-colonialist enemies, must fail so as to damn the land reforms we have undertaken. We have also seen a wish to make us dependent on food imports as opposed to enhancing our own capacity for production

Ladies and Gentlemen,

My country's agricultural policy objective is primarily to ensure national and household food security mainly though our own efforts of production. Zimbabwe, like most Southern African countries, depends on rain-fed agriculture, which has hampered economic development due to the unreliability of rainfall for sustained crop production. To mitigate the country's vulnerability to the vagaries of the weather, Zimbabwe has an ongoing programme of dam construction across the country to harness water and develop reliable water sources. This increase in the number and capacity of dams has appreciably enhanced the availability of water resources for irrigation development. With adequate levels of support, Zimbabwe has the potential to increase the land under irrigation from the present 153 000 to 453 000 hectares.

Besides the water shortages induced by climate change, Zimbabwe has also been affected by shortages of inputs such as seeds, fertilizers and agricultural chemicals. We have come to realize that our quest for food security is tied to investment in industrial projects that focus on inputs production. Further, Government continues to support the agriculture sector through a number of credit schemes, including concessionary loans for working capital, and the procurement of equipment and machinery. To buttress these schemes, the government has also introduced a farm mechanisation programme targeting both smallholder and commercial farming sectors. But we remain keenly aware that the mechanisation programme cannot be complete if it does not yield the capacity to enable us to export value-added products.

We are grateful for the support we have received from the SADC region, which provided seeds and fertilisers through the SADC Agricultural Inputs Support Initiative. With this support from SADC, the country experienced a dramatic 75 per cent increase in maize production this year. For the 2009/2010 season, we have received support from various international cooperating partners who provided input packs through the Small Holder Emergency Support Programme which is coordinated by the Food and Agriculture Organisation and is expected to reach over 600 000 households. Zimbabwe is grateful for this support.

The recent energy crisis has once again brought the importance of developing alternative sources of energy to the fore. Combined with the power outages we experienced last year as a result of the energy deficit in the SADC region, the rise in oil prices has had a negative impact on our farming activities. As a result, we have since 2004, given priority to the development of bio-energy, with particular emphasis on diesel and ethanol To avoid the negative effects of using maize as a bio-fuel feedstock, our project uses jatropha seed and cane. The use of jatropha seed as feedstock in the bio diesel programme has expanded the market for the jatropha seed, thus generating incomes for communities, mainly those in rural areas. Being a crop that thrives on marginally productive soils, jatropha does not pose any threat to the country's staple maize crop or other cereals in terms of competition for land.

Mr Chairman,

Despite the decline in the HIV prevalence rate in the 15-49 year age-group to 13,7 per cent, Zimbabwe remains concerned is still high because the people most affected by the pandemic comprise in the main the most economically productive group m society. In response to the effects of the epidemic on the agricultural sector, my government has adopted the Zimbabwe Agricultural Sector Strategy on HIV and AIDS whose main objective is to mitigate the impact of the pandemic, although hampered at the moment by resource constraints.

Zimbabwe has made good progress under the Comprehensive African Agricultural Programme Frame (AADP), the Dar es Salaam Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security, and the 2003 Maputo Declaration on allocating at least 10 per cent of budget to agriculture. Zimbabwe will not allow land alienation from the indigenous farmers by a new class of imported would-be land owners as this would negate our people-centred land policy and create new bitter land conflicts. 

We welcome the decision taken at the food security session held on the sidelines of the G8 Summit m L'Aquila, Italy, on 10 July this year, to mobilize US$20 billion support for sustainable agricultural development over the next three years. We hope the fund will not be politicised, and will be directed solely towards assisting developing countries in developing countries in developing effective agricultural adaptation strategies.. Besides the need for increased investment in agriculture, we wish to appeal for unwavering political commitment to the Doha Round of trade negotiations so that it can lead to sustainable and equitable reform of policies governing global trade in agricultural commodities.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I would like to reiterate the call for urgent and substantial increases in investment in agriculture in developing countries. It is also critical that agricultural inputs such as seed, fertilisers and chemicals be made easily available to small scale farmers, especially women and young people. Finally, may western countries please remove their illegal and inhuman sanctions on my country and its people!

I thank you.

Source: www.fao.org November 17 2009 (transcribed from the PDF)

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We in Zimbabwe have come to realize that besides adverse nature and ruinous agricultural policies of powerful nations, there is also the challenge of punitive policies of certain countries whose interests stand opposed to our quest for the equity and justice of our land reforms. We face very hostile interventions by these states which have imposed unilateral sanctions on us. This has had a negative impact on our farmers who, according to our neo-colonialist enemies, must fail so as to damn the land reforms we have undertaken. We have also seen a wish to make us dependent on food imports as opposed to enhancing our own capacity for production."

Robert Mugabe

 

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A bad workman blames his tools It's strange how under worse sanctions and similar weather conditions Rhodesian farmers used to thrive. Shut up Bob and admit you are a racist bigot who has shot his own leg off with a failed land thieving policy. by Max on November 17 2009, 17:51 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

They f*ck*d up entire countries.... President Mugabe is correct in the following respect: It is the West that destroyed Zimbabwe. This is a truism, and if anyone should share the blame with Mugabe, then it is Britain. It is perverse, I know, but nevertheless true. So when . .more President Mugabe blames the British for the undoing of Zimbabwe, he is correct is a perverse way. Let us now recall where President Mugabe came from. He was the leader of ZANU, fighting Ian Smiths government and forces in the 1980. Western Leftists, who have always hated the whites in Africa, supported Mugabe and his organisation. They shared this support with Comintern, and provide material, political and moral support for the organisation. Many of Western Leftists invervened personally to strengthen ZANU and to help that organisation defeat the Rhodesians. It did not help that Abel Muzorewa was the first black president of Mugabe, for them (the Western Left) he was too close to the hated whites, and they did not concede until THEIR HERO, Robert Mugabe, was installed as president. Britain in the end caved to their pressure, and at the Lancasterhouse agreement, installed Mugabe as the preferred revolutionary to govern Zimbabwe. The legacy of those decisions are clear today. These men and women of the Western Left f*ck*d up entire countries - but still claim innocence. . .less by JVR on November 17 2009, 18:24 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Do these black African leaders that talk such nonsense not realise that all around the room the people listening are quietly rolling their eyes at the moronic garbage being spieled and they are trying so hard not to show it but deep down they are thinking ... "are there absolutely no leaders in black africa . .more that one can actually take seriously and acknowledge for their comendable actions and thinking. Must they all be aspiring Idi Amins. It is so tiresome and really really embarassing." . .less by Sad days on November 17 2009, 19:19 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

quiet! R.B. seriously needs to STFU. by anonymous coward on November 18 2009, 05:41 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Mugabe Mugabe forgot to add, in paragraph two of his address, "mismanagement of their countries' economies by some thieving black African Presidents" to the list of the causes of food insecurity in "many parts of the world". There probably was much . .more rolling of the eyes at Mugabe's claim that : "We face very hostile interventions by these states which have imposed unilateral sanctions on us. This has had a negative impact on our farmers who, according to our neo-colonialist enemies, must fail so as to damn the land reforms we have undertaken." After all, sanctions have not been imposed on Zimbabwe but "on us", meaning personally on Mugabe and his henchmen, none of whom are farmers. So that begs the question of how and why that has a negative impact on "our farmers". And he dares to call his and his non-farming buddies' stealing of farms from productive farmers "the land reforms we have undertaken" in an address to that well-informed audience! His so-called neo-colonialist enemies don't need his farming failure to damn his "land reforms", theft is a crime no matter where it occurs, and it is that which damns these so-called land reforms. The sad thing for us is that many in this country look to Robert Mugabe as a role model (e.g. the ANCYL and YCL), the dire straits of his country and its population notwithstanding. . .less by flebus on November 18 2009, 08:27 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

JVR's Malema logic JVR seems to be saying that because Britain (as the colonial power prior to Ian Smith's UDI) facilitated the talks which led to the first universally free and fair democratic elections in Zimbabwe in 1980, Britain is to blame for all Zimbabwe's failures . .more under Robert Mugabe, who was the victor in those first free and fair democratic elections. This is surely the kind of "logic" one would expect from the likes of Julius Malema. Presumably Britain was responsible for the electorate making a "bad" choice? Or does JVR hold that Zimbabweans were not entitled to choose their own leader in a free and fair election? I'd like to know who, using JVR's Malema logic, is responsible for our plight following the ANC's many failures? Is it Britain who handed the country over to the whites in 1910, or is it F.W. de Klerk who unbanned to ANC in 1990, or is it the "white left" which JVR has so often fingered? . .less by mpho on November 18 2009, 09:14 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

ZIM Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhahahahahahahhaha! You go Bobby! by J on November 18 2009, 09:38 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Zim It is true that one would have to give the onion to the British for their blatant reneging of the conditions clearly agreed to in the Lancaster House agreement.Though RM is misguided in his belief of his own importance,he is however the recipient of the . .more UK's post colonial arrogance and deceit.Any informed person would read the LH agreement and conclude that Zim was stiffed.The british stif upper lip and limp wrist-ed native beating destroyed Zimbabwe.RM was just the right tool to do it. . .less by RT on November 18 2009, 10:36 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

@RT on ZIM Absolute nonsense! Mugabe reneged on the Lancaster House agreement by misappropriating funds supplied by Britain for land reform. The Mugabe regime had gone rotten long before Tony Blair decided it was morally objectionable to continue funding the . .more thieving of that regime. Furthermore, do you actually mean to tell us that black Zimbabweans are so utterly useless they needed more than 20 years' worth of handouts from the British to build an economically viable state, and that ALL their woes stem from lack of further handouts from Britain? Seems to me Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) was doing pretty well under Ian Smith with no handouts from anybody, and vicious sanctions from Britain. Pity Zimbabweans, like black South Africans, were pretty useless when it came to choosing their leader. In the case of Zimbabwe all the negatives are blamed on Britain which exited that stage almost thirty years ago. In South Africa all the negatives are blamed on apartheid which was already dead about twenty years ago. They must all be pretty grateful to have such ready excuses. Makes you think, doesn't it? . .less by mpho on November 18 2009, 15:07 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Mr mpho, confess your participation in the undoing of SA... Mr mpho - the British had a hand in the destruction of Zimbabwe - that is a physical truth. RT explains why clearly above, and Mugabe is perverse and correct when he blames Britain. Naturally, in another universe, Mahatma Ghandi himself . .more took over from Ian Smith, and despite bungling from the British and the vehemence of the White Left that would not be satisfied with anyone but Robert Mugabe, he manages to turn Zimbabwe into what it could have been. That did not happen, and the urge of the British to cut themselves loose from any responsibility (including military) towards Zimbabwe, together with the enabling of Mugabe by Western Leftists, led to Zimbabwe's undoing. This is plain. Now about you: I read in a newspaper yesterday an article by Chris Louw in which he questions the whole Dakar experience and his own participation in it. He at the very least recognizes that they (also himself) may have been naive about the ANC. Now I agree with that - but I wonder why so many have recognized that they have completely underestimated the true intentions and goals of the ANC, while you have still not come around on this point about yourself. This is true: SA was undone by the White Left who enabled the ANC. The historical evidence is clear. Accept your part in this process and confess. Then make it better for your own. . .less by JVR on November 18 2009, 16:44 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

@JVR Apartheid was undone because it was a stupid immoral system, finish and klaar! Just about everyone in the world could see it collapsing under the weight of it's own stupidity. There were even Afrikaners who explained to the Nats that the system was . .more economically and politically bankrupt, or rapidly heading that way. Fortunately FW had rather more intellligence than PW and oversaw the end of the whole stupid edifice. You, JVR, are as stupid as PW. . .less by Jeff on November 18 2009, 18:30 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

@JVR For the good of your own mental health, go and seek counselling. This hatred of the "White Left" and Britain is not doing you any good. Your ridiculous obsessions can be treated with psychotherapy and medicines. You have nothing to say of any relevance. . .more What's verby is verby, you cannot bring it back. Thank God! . .less by Jeff on November 18 2009, 18:37 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

@JVR No man, you are stuck in your easy-way-out Malema type logic which relies on your own prejudices and fantasies to come to fantastically obtuse conclusions. For starters : Consider the 1994 elections is South Africa : Who do you think put those . .more millions of crosses down for the ANC? Britain? The White Left? Who canvassed these crosses for the ANC? The White Left maybe? But the Party supported by the White Left also contested the elections.....so why did that do so badly? Plain common sense tells one that the black majority were so gatvol with white supremacist baasskap rule, which gave all whites a bad name, that the black majority would have nothing to do with anything perceived as white. So, unless it is your contention that blacks should not have qualified for the franchise in the first -place, the fact of a majority for the ANC, and the fact of the ANC's subsequent hi-jacking by rabid black nationalists under Thabo Mbeki, cannot logically be ascribed to the machinations of Britain or the White Left. In fact the British Government was more than just sympathetic to the white Nationalist Government, and cannot reasonably be said to have engineered a majority for the ANC in the 1994 elections. What you, JVR never touch on, is what should have been done to avoid an ANC-type Government coming to power in South Africa. . .less by mpho on November 18 2009, 20:09 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

@JVR cont'd Given that by 1990 nothing less than a one-man-one-vote dispensation had become the goalpost, what do you think could reasonably have been done, or should have been done to have avoided South Africa ending up with the kind of Government it now . .more has? Your Boer leaders were so busy making sure they had "sunset clauses" agreed to to save their butts that they did not give adequate attention to legal guarantees which would have avoided the mess we are in now with cadre deployment, AA, EE, BEE, and a host of racist practices which should be illegal. Why do we not have sunset clauses for all the racist claptrap the ANC has sprung on the country? Oh no! That was not important to the Boer negotiators, die bangatte het net na die redding van hulle eie gatte omgesien. So, Mr JVR, the real niggers in the woodpile were not the White Left, but a rather stupid and naive corps of Boere negotiators who sold the whites and South Africa down the river by not ensuring that we indeed became a non-racial democracy. See, you constantly point your finger at the White Left, whilst your three other fingers are pointing back at you and your stupid Boere. Even Ramaphosa remarked that the Boer negotiator Roelf Meyer looked very happy whilst in fact he had little to be happy about. . .less by mpho on November 18 2009, 20:37 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Aah, the duo are back! Aahh The duo are back! Jeff, I agree with your analysis in your first post, but I also observe that the ANC was almost finished in the 1960s and that the White Left made common cause to resurrect them and to install them as . .more government. Methinks you protest too much, while denying your own motives and role. For the record, I did not loose my brain in 1994, as you apparently did. Keep on searching, you may yet find it back. And Mr mpho -- Helen Suzman campaigned for the ANC in the 1980s, as did Peter Hain, as did much of the British Left establishment, as did the White Left in South Africa under the UDF banner, as did the Anglican Communion, as did Sweden, and, of course, Comintern. And you made common cause with them. Your goal, that no-one less than the super-geniuses in the ANC should govern. Now I have never defended the Nats on this noticeboard or elsewhere, nor have I ever written anywhere that White Rule should have continued. What I have observed is that the present today, of malfunction and violence, was created by the White Left in the 1970s and 80s. I am surprised that you are unhappy with Meyer, since your politics were against him, and designed to undermine his side of the debate. Lastly, explain to me why you hate Oranians, and moreover, why you hate Boers (such as myself)? . .less by JVR on November 18 2009, 22:41 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

@JVR I don't hate Boers at all! They also did a lot of good and achieved much, as did the English; but I do protest when their failures are defended. My politics did NOT undermine Meter's side of the debate (you seem to think in terms of stereotypes), . .more I'm to the "right" of Meyer, the twit gave away too much, as I said in my previous post. The Nats held all the aces, but let the ANC get away with the rubber, either through stupidity or because of undue haste to save their butts. But you are still indulging in Malema-type logic. The fact the certain parties may have been sympathetic to the ANC at some stage does not mean that they installed them, or wished to install them in Government, the electorate did that. Also, the white left did not campaign for the ANC in the 1994 election, they campaigned for their own party. You may not have lost your brain in 1994, but you certainly seem to have lost it since then! I voted for the Democratic Party in 1994; that's losing my brain? I don't want to call you stupid, but you do seem to have some unintelligent opinions. . .less by mpho on November 19 2009, 07:10 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

JVR At all the anti-JVR lobby. Go read a book called "Scam: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America" Can be bought from Loot.co.za and Amazon.com Your minds will change real fast. by Kyle on November 19 2009, 07:55 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

zim mpho you are right but this is africa they are always right never never never wrong by ivan on November 19 2009, 07:58 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

@Kyle That rules me out; I'm not anti-JVR; and where there are politicians there's exploitation of their adherents. I'm sure the Black Leadership exploits Black America, why shouldn't they? What else are suckers for? by mpho on November 19 2009, 10:59 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

It was an amazing achievement by the White Left, Mr mpho.... I accept your assurance that "you are to the right" of Meyer, but I maintain that you misunderstood the realities facing Meyer and de Klerk. They were isolated, hated by a victorious White Left (in the form of the UDF and Black Sash), threatened . .more with worse by the West (who were lobbied by the SAcan white left in the form of Helen Suzman, Donald Woods and Trevor Huddleston into an anti-Afrikaner frenzy), and in these circumstances had to negotiate while on the defensive. You might as well have held a proverbial gun to Meyer's head and told him to sign on the dotted line, such was the psychology. Of the Western leaders at the time, only Margaret Thatcher did not succumb to the pressure, and for that she was vilified by the British Left. (I am also told that she was appalled at the outcome of the negotiations) Let me try again: The undoing of South Africa can be traced back to the 1960s, when the SAcan Left decided to make common cause with Comintern's long range intentions. At that time the ANC was marginalized, did not have much support locally or internationally, but they were nevertheless chosen and resurrected by White Left for their purpose of having a National Democratic Revolution. In this project the were later helped by the UDF and countries like Sweden and Holland. Then they succeeded. An amazing achievement. . .less by JVR on November 19 2009, 16:40 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

African leaders would you fault him on assistance with agriculture reform or rather you African leaders, is this statesman an individual of his own who most of you wish you could have some part of, and say it like it is.... by @ Zimrhod on November 19 2009, 21:31 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Let's agree to differ Had the ANC not survived some other Black nationalist movement would have come to the fore, maybe even worse than the ANC. Our downfall was the absurd policy of "separate development" and white racist nationalism. The policy was just plain crazy, . .more and the logical eventual choice was either revolution or a voluntary settlement for a unitary State. It took the whites and their governments too long to come to terms with this reality; en kyk hoe lyk ons nou! But it could have been worse. . .less by mpho on November 19 2009, 22:16 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

Mugabe Mugabe is a fu%@%nk idiot. Hey I wonder if Bitch Mugabe still sells milk to Nestle???? by Bok on November 20 2009, 15:44 Find this comment inappropriate? Report it

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