GURUVE — Villagers in the Muzarabani floodplain have resorted to selling their livestock for a song to raise money for food and other needs due to widespread hunger after their crops were washed away by the recent floods that ravaged the area.
PHILLIP CHIDAVAENZI
Villagers told NewsDay last week that hunger had forced some of them to sell chickens for between $2 and $5, while goats were fetching between $8 and $15, with the majority of their buyers coming from Harare.
“Most of us who have not gone to the high lands after the 2007 floods lost our crop and there is so much hunger. We are selling goats for as little as $8,” Miriam Chipuriro of Chadereka Village said.
Locals, who were traditionally cotton growers, have abandoned the crop due to plummeting prices and were now relying on livestock for survival. The area had good conditions for animal husbandry. A number of expecting mothers came to the local clinic with chickens to sell so they could raise the fee before they could be attended to at the clinic.
“This is how we are now surviving,” Chenai Mutongi, who had come for review at Muzarabani Clinic, said.
A snap survey in the area revealed that while a beast was fetching anything between $50 and $200 depending on its size, some hard–pressed villagers were parting with a heifer for just four buckets of maize.
More than 10 cattle-laden trucks are seen daily driving out of Mashonaland Central Province.
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Streambank cultivation is widespread and villagers said they engaged in the practice because if the rains stopped just for two days or more, the maize would wilt so they opted for the riverside which did not dry up even if the rains ceased for several days.
In Hoya Village, the flooded Manase River ate into people’s fields on its banks following the notable rains recorded in December last year.
Muzarabani North MP Alfred Mufunga (Zanu PF) told NewsDay that he would work to ensure that villagers got fair prices for their livestock as they were being ripped off by dealers.
“People are giving away their cattle in exchange for three bags of maize,” Mufunga said. “It’s so bad that some have resorted to selling their cattle at night for fear of being laughed at by neighbours.”
Mufunga said during his term, he would work towards establishing an abattoir in the area which would be guided by standard commercial prices of livestock to ensure that villagers also benefited.
