The land is fertile, the rain is falling, but the agricultural system has been destroyed by Robert Mugabe
The road west from Harare leads through some of the most fertile land in southern Africa. The December rains are watering the plains and anything planted now should bear a bountiful harvest.
But nothing is being planted. There are no tractors making their way through what should be a sea of winter wheat seedlings.
These fields that once fed an entire region of Africa no longer feed even the country itself.
Through no act of God, Zimbabwe’s new year harvest has already failed. The commercial farmers are gone and in their place wasted children scavenge by the roadside for kernels of corn that fall from passing trucks and can be picked out from the asphalt.
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