Hunger and power: Politics, food (in)security and the development of small grains in Zimbabwe, 2000-2010

Abstract

White maize sadza is the most eaten food in Zimbabwe. Yet, over the decade of the 2000s, its consumption was threatened by drought and consequent acute food shortages. Small grains - sorghum and millet - offered a panacea to looming starvation and civil unrest. Yet, as we argue in this article, its access became rooted increasingly within political contestations between the ruling ZANU PF government, the budding opposition party and ordinary citizens. Using the story of small grains -sorghum and millet - between 2000 and 2010, we trace how food (in)security took a political form, stirring a pot of sometimes violent clashes between political and social contenders. We argue that through 'political grain', various political and social elites were able to amass wealth and power for themselves and grab control of sociopolitical discourse on food security during the crisis years. As the state imposed a series of seemingly well-intentioned and sometimes even widely welcomed food initiatives such as Operation Maguta and BACOSSI, these food security measures were often ad hoc, temporary and - as we argue - actually had an adverse long-term impact on local grain production and food availability. The government worked through key parastatals like the Grain Marketing Board and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to allocate resources and food support to ruling party loyalists. In this period, the ZANU PF regime was concerned primarily with holding on to its waning political power and avenues for personal wealth accumulation at the expense of food security in the country. This paper demonstrates how an anthropogenically-induced 'hunger' effectively prolonged ZANU PF's control of society - but we also show how 'small people' fought back against President Robert Mugabe's 'big men' by embracing the growing and eating of traditional 'small grains'.