Zimbabwe fuel drought hits food transport

By Chris Carnegy
BBC World Service business reporter

Fuel shortages have hit commuters, businesses and farmers

An acute shortage of diesel fuel has created big problems for farmers trying to transport their harvest to feed the starving.

Part of Zimbabwe's maize crop has been left to rot, in a country facing a food crisis, despite a relaxation of this summer's ban on commercial fuel imports.

Fuel shortages began to bite as long ago as 1999, but they have got worse in recent weeks, leaving commuters, businesses and farmers struggling to keep moving.

Although the mainstream maize harvest is in, thousands of tons grown by peasant farmers in the Mashonaland East province are in danger of rotting for lack of transport, the Herald newspaper reports.

The situation has worsened at a desperate time, hot on the heels of a water shortage that has hit harvests so hard, more than five million Zimbabweans will need food aid by the end of this year, aid agencies have warned.

Expensive fuel

This summer, President Robert Mugabe relaxed regulation to allow the commercial import of fuel, but that has delivered help only at a high price.

White commercial farmers are still feeling the effects of the land seizures

"Farmers normally get together in groups and order fuel in bulk. They import it directly or import it through various groups using foreign currency," explained the chief executive of Zimbabwe's Commercial Grain Producers' Association, George Hutchison.

"What this means is that instead of fuel costing the regulated price of 450 Zimbabwean dollars per litre, it is costing over Z$2,000, probably NZ2,200-2,300 per litre," he said, referring to the difference between the official exchange rate of Z$824 to the US dollar and the actual market rate of up to Z$6,000 to the US dollar.

Farmers who are able to pay have little choice but to do so.

"Farmers are having to do this in order to reap their crops and pay for the following season," Mr Hutchison said.

Falling output

Faced with a fuel bill that as quadrupled and more than 450% hyper-inflation that makes essential supplies like seed more expensive, Zimbabwe's farmers are engaged in a battle for commercial survival.

White commercial farmers are still feeling the effects of President Robert Mugabe's land seizures, designed to put resources in the hands of the black majority.

Some are moving out of staple crops like maize and turning to higher-margin vegetables.

But agricultural production is down by 50% in the last year, and the fuel crisis feels like one more blow for an already punch-drunk farming sector.