Maravi

(HERALD ZW) Maize farmers want US$400/tonne
Friday, 05 April 2013 00:00

COMMENT - Farmers (including tobacco farmers) should pay their taxes in maize.

Farmers unions have submitted proposals to the Government to peg the producer price for maize this year at US$400 per tonne, up from the US$295 which the Grain Marketing Board is currently paying.

Private buyers are offering prices just above US$300 per tonne. The grain marketing season begins on April 1 and the Government is yet to fix the producer price for this year.

Zimbabwe Farmers’ Union second vice president Mr Berean Mukwende said production costs had been increasing by high margins every year while the producer price remained stagnant.

“We have submitted a proposal to Government. We are looking at a price of US$400 per tonne to recoup production costs. That is our recommendation because generally that is also the landing price for imported maize,” he said.

Mr Mukwende said the producer price would protect farmers from unscrupulous grain buyers who often rip them off by offering very low prices.

Maize production has generally declined in the country due to droughts experienced in some parts of the country and also low producer prices which have driven some farmers to shift to other crops like tobacco.

Zimbabwe Commercial Farmers’ Union vice president Mr Johnson Mapira said the GMB should not pay less than US$400 per tonne to restore confidence among farmers.

Mr Mapira urged farmers to aim for higher yields per hectare in order to get more returns.

“We encourage farmers to aim for at least four tonnes of maize per hectare. It is even possible for farmers to get 10 tonnes per hectare and if we multiply it by US$400, it is a lot of money,” he said.

He urged farmers to deliver their grain to the GMB early to prevent it from deteriorating in quality mainly due to pests.
Zimbabwe requires 1 384 million tonnes of grain for human consumption and 350 000 tonnes for livestock and other uses.

This year the country is again facing maize shortages and will have to import with agriculture experts calling on the Government to rehabilitate and install irrigation infrastructure as well as provide incentives for producing the crop. - New Ziana.




http://www.herald.co.zw/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=73459%3Athe-two-white-wicked-ambassadors&catid=93%3Amai-jukwa&Itemid=159#.UWH5BkpTsVc

The two white, wicked ambassadors
Sunday, 07 April 2013 20:35

Some will protest the unrestrained aggression of this title. I offer no apologies for stating facts as they are. If the American and British ambassadors, Bruce and Deborah, wish for a more favourable appraisal, they must put an immediate stop to their shameless acts of dishonesty as well as their wicked and unprovoked aggression.

Let this be made clear, Zimbabwe has not disengaged any nation nor has it been ostracised by the wider international community; we continue to enjoy cordial relations with peace-loving nations.

Brazil, China, Russia, Japan, South Africa, Qatar, India, and Indonesia a host of other countries are true friends of Zimbabwe.

If Britain and the United States wish to re-engage with Zimbabwe they simply need to unclench their imperial fists and shake the hand of friendship that Zimbabwe has extended to all peoples of this earth.

Zimbabwe has not expressed military aggressions against them. We have not sought to annex a chunk of Essex. We have not imposed sanctions against them. We have not sought to sabotage their interests in the region although this is within our capacity.

It is their clenched fist alone that needs reform.

We reject in the strongest terms the propaganda attempt by the British to paint themselves as benevolent hands somehow extending an olive branch to a nation otherwise living in the shadows.

This is nonsense.

The only countries that imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe were white Western nations standing in racist solidarity with the 4500 British farmers that President Mugabe kicked out after Britain foolishly tried to pull fast one by reneging on their Lancaster House commitments.

We are not living in the shadows except to those who think that the West is the sunshine of this world. It is not.

Bruce and Deborah, the chief cheerleaders of these racist machinations that are dishonestly cloaked in the regal language of democracy and human rights, made for a pathetic spectacle these past few weeks.

Prancing about making a nuisance of themselves on social media networks, they were at pains to be seen as extending some kind of generosity for which the people of Zimbabwe needed to applaud them.

This fantasy exists only in their racist heads and cannot be allowed to carry on. It is necessary to now put the facts into perspective and rescue these rogue ambassadors from the captivity of their own delusions.

Only white nations

The only countries that “disengaged” and imposed sanctions — call them targeted or whatever sanitising term you wish — against Zimbabwe were white. This is quite a peculiarity.

Of all the diverse peoples of this earth is it a coincidence that only white nations imposed sanctions? These white former colonisers are so shameless as to claim they imposed these sanctions because they love Zimbabweans.

The contradictions are violent.

All other countries of this earth refused to join their racist and vindictive assault, which was in retaliation for our decision to kick out the British farmers. They stole that land and got their just desserts.

There are no Zimbabwean farmers in Britain and we will never apologise for kicking colonial criminals out.

Those greedy white former farmers salivating at the thought of compensation should read this clearly — not a penny will be paid. We will never tax Zimbabweans to reward British thieves.

They are very angry

The white world had grown accustomed to taking over the land and resources of others and getting away with it. Australia is a perfect example of this.

In that wicked example of white conquest, the indigenous aboriginals live on the periphery of society while criminals of white European extraction have established themselves as the lawful authority.

A similar effort is underway in Argentina.

The insatiable greed of the British is laying claim to the Malvinas, lands that are thousands of miles from Britain. It defies logic.

They have installed their kith and kin on that land and legitimise their shameless acts with empty democratic gestures to rubber stamp their theft.

President Mugabe said no to this, we could not accept domination in our own lands. Mugabe’s ‘chutzpah’ shocked the white world.

Never before had a nigger successfully sequestrated property from the white man. They had grown accustomed to pillaging the resources of indigenous peoples the world over and had elevated their criminality to a legitimate system of ownership.

Robert Mugabe challenged this, smashing their clay-pot doctrines of ownership to pieces.

He had to be taught a lesson.

Jumping up and down, frothing with racist rage, the British co-opted their American brothers and the rest of their white kith and kin. All other nations refused to take part.

This is an important point.

In the end it was only white countries that joined forces against Zimbabwe.

Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Britain, France, the United States and a handful of other pathetically vindictive white countries came together in ungodly alliance and imposed crippling sanctions.

At one time they went to the United Nations begging the rest of the world to join in their unrighteous crusade in a hope to legitimise what was clearly a racial affair.

The world said no.

To this day that racist club remains a shameless grouping of white nations that has tried every dirty trick in the book to paint themselves as friends of Zimbabwe when even drunkards in beer halls know that they are nothing more than Friends of Britain against Zimbabwe.

Shameless hypocrites

How would the people of Britain have reacted if the Kremlin had announced that it was working with the Conservative party to overthrow the Labour government of Tony Blair on the grounds that the invasion of Iraq was an unforgivable transgression that violated international law?

A great number of British citizens disagreed with Tony Blair’s decision to invade a foreign country.

An even greater number, perhaps in the millions, opposed his political ideology and certainly wanted him out of office.

Could we then say the British would embrace this external interference by Vladimir Putin?

I think not.

Would the people not scream treason if documents were uncovered showing the leader of the Conservative party working in cahoots with the Russians, giving them information on government officials and urging them on to sanction the country?

Would this not amount to one of the greatest scandals of British politics? Consider how they screamed themselves sore over cash for questions.

The people of Britain would resent external interference in their domestic affairs and rightly so.

They are a sovereign state. So how is it that Tony Blair confidently stood in the Commons and stated quite publicly that his government was actively working with the MDC?

How is that the WikiLeaks cables show Tendai Biti identifying Government officials and entities that should be placed on the sanctions list?

How is it that we read another cable of Morgan Tsvangirai shamelessly telling the ambassador to keep the sanctions in place and admitting that his public calls for their removal were merely for show?

They still perceive Zimbabwe to be a “sub-territory” where their jurisdiction presides.

They find comfort for their white supremacist ideas in leaders like Tsvangirai who lack the intellectual rigour to realise that they are being used to re-establish this jurisdiction.

Like Abel Muzorewa, Tsvangirai is not a bad man. He is simply being used as British tissue paper and will be disposed of in the rightful place for tissue paper when the time comes.

This is how the British operate.

The use, abuse and then dump padlock-brain puppets.

This glaring duplicity is apparent only to us; the likes of Bruce and Deborah are entirely oblivious.

How else could one explain how they esteem themselves celestial beings of the democratic order and seek to instruct us on the rule of law whilst at the very same time holding a man in Guantanamo Bay for ten years without charge and without trial?

The hypocrisy of Bruce and Deborah is born of an inherent superiority complex that bleeds into the depths of their very intellects from childhood and blinds them to anything that contradicts white domination.

It is a classic case of the Orwellian doublethink in which the depraved mind manages to hold two diametrically opposing thoughts.

This explains why the former white farmers actually think that they deserve compensation for land that they stole from us through violent subjugation whilst at the same time pleading reconciliation and a forgiveness of sins for their colonial misdeeds.

It is quite similar to bandit who waylays a horseman, takes his beast and possessions and flees.

On apprehension that bandit pleads the virtues of forgiveness and mercy but tactfully explains that bygones must bygones and how it is only right he be allowed to keep the horse.

In this way he is not only forgiven of his sins but gets to keep the loot as well.

The rest of us black mortals find this outrageous and are puzzled by this manner of logic, but Deborah and Bruce see it through an entirely different lens. That lens is white.

Diplomatic deodorant

In an effort to stem the stench of their duplicity these two hypocrites run around shouting into every ear that is willing to listen how generous they are and how great their love for Zimbabwe is.

They accomplish this through hollow and ineffectual charitable gestures. They call it aid.

After all these years of British and American generosity I would like to meet even just a single Zimbabwean who was set free from poverty by these said generosities.

I do not ask for a dozen such people, merely one. Not a single peasant in Zimbabwe has had their life changed by these self-serving aid programmes.

If you dare ask me for an example of a person set free by Robert Mugabe’s much-maligned land reform, I will send you to the tobacco floors and show you thousands.

It is unhealthy for the soul to take pleasure in the suffering of an enemy but one is permitted the occasional indulgence.

I took quite some satisfaction in reading of Madhuku’s recent emotional outburst in which he publicly railed against his former Western handlers, admitting that they had used him as a pawn to further their selfish interests.

Tsvangirai’s “Damascus moment” is also fast approaching.

As a child my father often used to say “murungu akaipa”.

In the naiveté of youth I thought him prosaic and extreme. His wisdom becomes evident with each passing day.

We have allowed these dishonest diplomats to carry on unchallenged for far too long. We are stepping into a new season in which we are taking these racist forces right by their demonic horns.

If they value the few remaining shreds of prestige they still enjoy amongst weak and gullible black minds of the Muzorewa persuasion, they would do well to keep a low profile as is becoming of diplomats.

* Mai Jukwa is a loving mother of three. She respects Robert Mugabe, is amused by Tsvangirai and feels sorry for Mutambara.

Labels: AMBASSADORS, GRAIN MARKETING BOARD (ZW), JOHNSON MAPIRA, MAI JUKWA, MAIZE

posted by MrK @ 5:46 PM