STORY: Crops wither in Zimbabwe as dry spell bites
SHOOTING TIME: Feb. 26, 2024
DATELINE: Feb. 29, 2024
LENGTH: 00:09:08
LOCATION: BEATRICE, Zimbabwe
CATEGORY: AGRICULTURE

SHOTLIST:
1. various of a local villager in a withered maize field
2. SOUNDBITE 1 (Shona): JANE CHARI, Local villager
3. various of withered maize and farmers
4. SOUNDBITE 2 (Shona): ERINA MAZWI, Local farmer
5. various of withered maize
6. various of farmer inspecting the withered
7. SOUNDBITE 3 (Shona): FARAI MAWARIRE, Farmer
8. various of farmer
9. SOUNDBITE 4 (Shona): FARAI MAWARIRE, Farmer
10. various of a maize field on irrigation
11. SOUNDBITE 5 (English): GILBERT MUKATYEI, Farmer
12. various of more green healthy maize and withered maize

STORYLINE:

Holding hands behind her back, Jane Chari looked at her wilting maize crop in a parched field in Beatrice, about 40 km to the southwest of Harare, Zimbabwe's capital.

The 64-year-old grandmother's hope for a harvest is now all but evaporated in the arid air.

A dry spell has persisted in Zimbabwe for close to a month, hurting the maize crop, her only source of livelihood.

SOUNDBITE 1 (Shona): JANE CHARI, Local villager
"It's so painful that I cannot sleep, worrying how I will feed my grandchildren, what are we going to eat. I have never seen anything like this, or this level of wilting. I cannot even think of how we are going to survive. We are clueless on how we are going to manage this."

Erina Mazwi, another farmer from the same area, said groundwater is drying up, and it is now very difficult to get water from wells.

SOUNDBITE 2 (Shona): ERINA MAZWI, Local farmer
"I had cultivated my crops and I was expecting a bumper harvest, but the dry spell is so unbearable. It is painful. I am left clueless. Sometimes I wonder how I am going to feed the family."

The World Food Program (WFP) warned last Tuesday that more people in Zimbabwe will likely require emergency food aid during the lean season when rural households face grain shortages while waiting for the harvest.

The government, in its latest livelihood assessment, said about 2.7 million people in rural areas, out of the country's total population of 16 million, face food insecurity in the current lean season, which typically starts in October and reaches its peak between January and March.

Farai Mawarire, another farmer from Beatrice, said the dry spell caught many farmers unprepared, adding that farmers need to consider drought-resistant crops such as traditional small grains.

SOUNDBITE 3 (Shona): FARAI MAWARIRE, Farmer
"As farmers in this area, in the previous years, we would harvest our crops with no challenges, so we never focused on drought-resistant crops such as millet or sorghum. We have learnt our lessons, and in the following seasons we will adopt drought-resistant crops."

While Mawarire's maize crop is now a write-off, his fallback is on groundnuts.

SOUNDBITE 4 (Shona): FARAI MAWARIRE, Farmer
"Of all the crops that we cultivated, only groundnuts are promising because they are still green and healthy. If we receive rains, even once, they will mature. That's our only hope for a harvest."

Meanwhile, Gilbert Mukatyei, another farmer, confronted the drought with climate-smart agricultural practices such as deep plowing, mulching and adopting early maturing crop varieties.

SOUNDBITE 5 (English): GILBERT MUKATYEI, Farmer
"You find here I am doing smart farming. Besides the deep ploughing we are doing, we are also applying our manure, we are also irrigating, and we are going to increase the number of our boreholes this year. And besides increasing the write-offs we also want to go solar, we have plenty of sunshine here. We need to make use of it."

The effects of the drought are being felt in other sectors of Zimbabwe's economy as well.

Tobacco, one of the highest foreign currency earners for the country, has also been affected by the dry spell, and slightly reduced yields are expected.

The tourism sector has not been spared either. At least 100 elephants died in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe's largest game reserve, due to the drought late last year, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube has projected that Zimbabwe's 2024 economic growth rate will slow to 3.5 percent, down from 5.3 percent in 2023, partly due to the expected impact of El Nino.

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Beatrice, Zimbabwe.
(XHTV)