Exports of fresh produce to the UK are proving a lifeline to the families of Zimbabwean horticulture and packhouse workers who would otherwise face starvation.
A businessman who still has fresh produce interests in the African country said the situation is a “tragedy”, and that employees and managers of horticultural operations are “terrified” and are frequently rounded up in the evenings after work for “reorientation” by government supporters, involving beatings and threats to persuade them to vote for president Robert Mugabe.
“We feed the people we employ each week,” the businessman, who cannot be named for fear of violent reprisals, told freshinfo. “We give them oil, fish, beans, meal, sugar. If we shut down then they will go into starvation, they and all their extended families.”
MP Peter Hain, the former Labour Cabinet minister was reported in The Daily Mail saying: “We need a blanket ban [on trade with Zimbabwe] which includes supermarkets to bring about pressure on the regime. Consumers can impose their own ban if supermarkets fail to act.”
And the newspaper said all foreign currency earned had to be paid into the Zimbabwean central reserve bank and exporters had to apply to use the remainder outside the country. If applications fail, the bank pays the company the value of its share in Zimbabwean dollars, leading the paper to claim that export cash earned is being used to prop up the Mugabe regime. But freshinfo's source said this was not the case and only 35 per cent of export earnings go to the reserve bank.
“If people want to sanction the place and impose boycotts then that might bring down the regime, but a lot of people would have to starve first.
“We are just hoping for a negotiated settlement in Zimbabwe and a government of national unity,” said the source. Horticulture farms could not just switch to produce staple crops either, he said: planting of maize or wheat could not begin immediately and would not be harvested for months, and the patchy availability of electricity means that such crops, which require 24 hour irrigation a day could simply not be grown.
