Zimbabwe’s agricultural production is poised to plummet further amid revelations that the country has secured less than 5% of the agricultural sector’s fuel requirements for the 2007/08 season.
In a development likely to hurt the key tobacco sub-sector, only 9-million litres of fuel have been acquired by cash-strapped Harare authorities against a demand of about 200-million litres.
A senior official in the Ministry of Energy and Power Development, Morgan Mudzinganyama, said the situation was further compounded by the late delivery of the fuel at a time most tobacco farmers should have started planting their crops.
“We do not have enough fuel. Only 9-million litres is coming into the country for the whole season,” Mudzinganyama told a parliamentary portfolio committee on energy, mining environment and tourism on Thursday.
The fuel would be sold at Z$59 000 a litre compared to the black market price of around Z$550 000 a litre.
The shortage of fuel for farmers comes at a time when the Harare authorities have set an ambitious target of almost doubling the tobacco output from 77-million kilograms to 120-million kilograms.
Agriculture Minister Rugare Gumbo this week said the target was within sight and that his ministry was doing everything in its power to ensure that the target is achieved.
The news of the shortages also comes against the backdrop of a declaration last week by Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Gideon Gono that the 2007/08 season would be “the mother of all agricultural seasons”.
Any fuel shortages would pose a major challenge to Zimbabwe’s quest to rebuild the tobacco industry and increase its foreign exchange earning capacity.
At the height of its agricultural boom in the late 1990s, Zimbabwe earned more than a third of her foreign currency from tobacco exports. – ZimOnline