The Zimbabwean government intends to outlaw the private trade of maize in the country by making the national Grain Marketing Board the sole buyer and seller of the country’s staple crop.
President Robert Mugabe’s government reported that it suspected white farmers were trying to create food shortages by hoarding grain. A government spokesman said that farmers, millers and private traders who disregard this new control initiative would have their stock confiscated and grain silos closed under the new legislation.
An official from the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), which represents 4,500 mainly white farmers, said that the organization was still looking into the details of the proposed legislation but that it would be another disaster for the country’s food industry, forcing it to take a step backwards.
By Richard Hurst, just-food.com correspondent in Johannesburg

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