The whole world is grappling with the question of Climate Change.  Its impact is being felt differently globally, more in some countries than others.

 Zimbabwe is feeling its heat. But there are serious issues over conflicting narratives.

While commendable efforts have been made to understand the concept of Climate Change, the southern African state still needs to work out a coherent communication voice on the crisis, and its response to manage and mitigate the impact.

This investigation by ZimFact with support from Code for Africa explores the Zimbabwean government’s social media stance and posture on communicating the facts on grain production in 2023 and 2024 over the impact of the El Niño weather pattern, focusing on steps taken to try and mitigate the impact of this natural disaster in the country. 

In May 2023 the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced that El Niño conditions had developed in the tropical Pacific for the first time in seven years, setting the stage for a likely surge in global temperatures and disruptive weather and climate patterns.

In Southern Africa, the impacts of El Niño have been felt across all sectors – food security, nutrition, agriculture, water and sanitation, energy, health and education – which leads to the suffering of vulnerable populations and to economic contraction.

At the time of the WMO announcement, Zimbabwe was preparing for the beginning of the 2023-2024 rainy season, which would also mark the start of the summer cropping season.

Eight years prior, in 2016, then President Robert Mugabe had declared a state of disaster following a drought in the country which was triggered by El Nino after 2.44 million people were declared to be struggling for food. 

During this period, 75% of the country received less than normal rainfall, a cereal shortfall of 1,5 million tonnes resulting from crop failure and yield reduction.  El Nino would have a similar devastating impact in the 2023/2024 agricultural season.

On April 3, 2024, Mugabe’s successor, President Emmerson Mnangagwa declared a state of Drought Disaster due to the severe food situation attributed to the El Nino effect.

In a post on X, President Mnangagwa wrote: “We are mobilizing resources to assist affected communities and mitigate the impact of this natural disaster. We stand together in solidarity during these challenging times”.

This announcement received mixed responses on social media as some people questioned the sincerity of this plea by government considering the government had reported that the country had recorded a surplus in the 2022/2023 season.

In a video posted on X  of  President Emmerson  Mnangagwa’s speech at  the  Dakar Africa Food Summit in January 2023 before the onset of El Nino, he declared that Zimbabwe had devised elaborate strategies to ensure the country is food secure in spite of  climate change.

Part of his remarks  read, “A country must eat what it kills, that is village wisdom, now in Zimbabwe we have problems of food insecurity and we said how much food do we want per year to feed our country, we know we need about 2,000,000MT of grain, so we say because there is climate change, how many hectares of land can we put under irrigation to produce 2,000,000+ MT to feed the nation and we determine how much yield does a hectare have. Once you have done that, you now know the amount of hectarage you need to put under irrigation to achieve the amount of grain you need to feed your nation in spite of climate change, that we have done and we are now food secure”.

Furthermore, in March 2023, ZBCNewsonline reported that Zimbabwe had despatched 300 Metric Tonnes of mealie meal to Malawi as relief following the impact of Cyclone Freddy.

On the 29th of July 2023, Nick Mangwana, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services reaffirmed that the country  had a maize and wheat surplus  in a  post on his x profile.

Despite the posturing of self-sufficiency on social media, this narrative was questioned by many who wondered where the surplus was coming from when people in the country were wallowing in poverty and the country was still relying on aid from the international community.

One user on X, questioned why the government was receiving grain from the Russians if the country had a surplus.

Further investigation by ZimFact showed that in 2024, Zimbabwe experienced a 59% decline in maize production compared to the 1552 Metric Tonnes produced in 2023. This marked a 68% deficit in the country’s projected annual consumption of 2000 Metric Tonnes. Interestingly, Zimbabwe had a 25% surplus in wheat production, surpassing the 450 Metric Tonnes annual consumption target in 2024.  

Maize and Wheat production and consumption patterns in Metric Tonnes (2023-2024)

 Source: Zimbabwe Economic and Fiscal Report 2023 and 2025

The sharp contrast in narratives shared by top government officials on social media and records from government reports reflect a need for factual and transparent communication and consistent messaging from government to keep the public up to date on the country’s state of affairs during natural disasters like El Niño.

While social media messaging gave the impression that the country had recorded a grain surplus in the run up to the 2023/2024 agricultural season, official documents revealed a huge deficit in maize production.

Despite President Mnangagwa’s declaration of a state of drought disaster after the 2023-2024 agricultural season, government continued to downplay the impact of El Niño on the national economy.  The Minister of lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development; Dr. Anxious Masuka erroneously declared that although the 2023/2024 drought caused by El Nino was the “worst since Independence”, its impact was not being felt because of the mitigation strategies put in place by government.

This message was amplified by a coordinated group of cyber-activists called “varakashi” who reshared the above post on “X” applauding the minister’s efforts despite his  claims being misleading.

Accounts such as, @zanupfbyoinfo, @Castro, @nqobilebhebhe , @dambumurakashi and @kellyngarava1 reshared the post and tagged other ‘varakashi’ for amplification.  Statistics show that the worst recorded drought in Zimbabwe occurred in 1991-1992 as a result of an El Nino event which caused devastating damage to crops and livestock. 

The remarks by the minister gave the impression that the impact of El Nino was contained as a result of proactive measures to minimise its impact but rather the country has benefitted from reactive measures such as maize imports from neighbouring South Africa, donations from China, India and Russia as well as aid from international agencies.

This is outlined in a report by  @SABCNews which highlighted that more than half of Zimbabwe’s population was food insecure needing aid to sustain themselves until March 2025. The post featured villagers from Chivi receiving cereals and cooking oil just before Christmas in 2024. 

The claims that there were no queues and escalation of food prices in the country were dispelled by individuals who provided context to explain the absence of visible queues at retail shops. Since 2022 some of the country’s top retailers, OK, Pick‘n’Pay, Choppies and Spar were downsizing or shutting down as a result worsening economic conditions, unfavourable exchange rate policies  and a surge in competition from the informal market which has fuelled the sprouting of tuckshops importing foodstuffs from South Africa.

As a result of the above challenges, the top retailers sometimes did not have the capacity to stock their shelves with basic commodities hence the absence of queues.  

In January 2024, @DailyNewsZim1 reported that Zimbabwe was facing serious mealie meal shortages forcing agricultural authorities to grant grain millers permission to import maize to improve local corn meal supplies.