BY RUKUDZO MANGOMA During my stint as a student at Great Zimbabwe University (GZU), the literature surrounding the subject of famine and food came easy to my understanding. The formula we were taught was simple, “more food, less famine and less food, more famine”. It worked well for a student who wanted to obtain a distinction and contributed to practitioners receiving awards, but this formula grossly misled people to take this human rights issue as a simple matter. In fact the field of famine and food is so challenging that most practitioners simply recycle the little information found about this topic, most of it wrong anyway. Beliefs were that famines reflected a shortage of food and that food production was measured in food grain. With theories as wrong as this, it is no wonder why most of Africa is undernourished and hopes to find a solution seem deem. Thus, I decided to dare walk in “no-man’s-land”, and uncover the myths surrounding famine and food. Most false information are spread by professionals such as economists, agronomists and politicians who want to fulfil self interests. It is their quest for significance and thirst for approval, combined with laziness that has led laymen astray. The mess regarding this field of research is so mangled together, starting from the 1930’s, that is probably why solutions are hard to put forward. For example, it was widely believed that more people would result in more erosion and ultimately famine, but this is not true. A study at the University of Nairobi in 1990, showed that in areas such as Machakos district, a population of 240 000 in 1932 rose to 1 393 000 in 1987, resulting in less soil damage because of infrastructural investment, foreign currency inflows due to horticulture. Thus, land became a important part in their lives and famine was controlled. The notion that famine is a result of food shortage must not be viewed in this manner. Famine, which is an extreme scarcity of food, is actually a result of being unable to command food or buy it. Given the dire economic circumstances in Zimbabwe, famine is caused by a lack of purchasing power. Zimbabweans either have no money to buy food or the value of their money reduces every day to buy enough food. What should matter is not how much is being produced, but who can command (buy) it once it is produced. The second misconception about food and famine is on the very definition of food production. Most people believe food production is indicated by cereals. Seed companies compete to see whose seed variety can achieve more yield per unit area for maize, rice and wheat. This is true in Zimbabwe as seed companies focus on marketing of grain varieties and the bias of “command agriculture” towards cereals. It is common sense that enough food has to be produced to meet human food requirements, but making production a single objective results in treating estimated grain production as total food production. Grains like maize, wheat and rice may lack major nutrients found in sweet potatoes, bananas and broccoli. According to a
