HARARE

Firewood has become Zimbabwe's hottest seller, with demand shooting up since the introduction two weeks ago of widespread and prolonged power outages to give the irrigation of winter wheat fields a priority allocation of dwindling energy supplies.

Chamunorwa Chimombe, a beneficiary of President Robert Mugabe's fast-track land reform programme, which redistributed white-owned commercial farmland to landless blacks, now spends his day sipping beer beside the busy highway connecting the capital, Harare, to the town of Mazowe, while he sells firewood from trees felled on his newly acquired farm.

It is the huge pile of wood he sits on top of, rather than the small handwritten sign, 'Firewood for Sale', that draws his customers. Within minutes of an IRIN correspondent's arrival at the roadside stall, a well-dressed woman driving one of the latest all-terrain light delivery vehicles stopped at the woodpile.

She asked Chamunorwa to fill the back of her truck with as much firewood as possible and had no qualms about paying the asking price of Z$1 million (US$16 at the parallel market exchange rate of US$1 to Z$60,000), because as long as there is firewood, urban households have fuel for cooking and heating during the winter.

Chamunorwa told IRIN the sparse rainy season left him with a very poor maize harvest, a situation replicated throughout the country. More than a third of the population will require food assistance by early next year, according to a joint report by the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organisation and the UN World Food Programme.

"The majority of resettled farmers [on former commercial farms] depend on natural rainfall, which should start falling in November, but between now and then I will be vending firewood to people from Harare, who are desperate for firewood, as they do not have adequate electricity. Many new farmers have actually discovered that it is more lucrative to sell firewood than to farm," Chamunorwa told IRIN.

Two weeks ago, the Zimbabwe Electricity Company (ZESA) introduced national power cuts of up to 24 hours a day to divert energy supplies to farms to provide irrigation for growing winter wheat. The government planted 76,000 hectares of winter wheat in a bid to meet the projected 400,000 metric tonne national requirement.

"It does not necessarily mean that our domestic consumers would be disconnected on a daily basis. We are trying to share the same little cake that we have among more people," said ZESA chief executive Ben Rafemoyo, explaining that the power outages would be erratic.

"We urge our consumers to understand that this is being done for a worthy cause. Load shedding and power cuts are a balancing act and their frequency will vary with demand," he said.

Democratic Republic of Congo cuts off Zimbabwe

Rafemoyo expected the power cuts to end in August, when the wheat crop matured, although reports in the state-controlled daily newspaper, The Herald, said on Tuesday that energy supplies would become scarcer because the Democratic Republic of Congo's national power utility, Societe Nationale d'Electric (SNEL), had given notice that it would stop supplying electricity to Zimbabwe after ZESA failed to pay the US$5 million it owed in arrears.

The Herald reported that Zimbabwe imported 100mW a month from SNEL at a cost of US$715,000, 200mW from Mozambique, up to 450mW from South Africa and as much as 300mW from Zambia. It is not known if ZESA is also in arrears to these countries.

Zimbabwe used to be self-sufficient in producing coal for power generation, but foreign currency shortages and an annual inflation rate of above 3,700 percent have made it almost impossible to maintain and replace mining equipment and railroad stock, leading to coal-supply problems.

New farmers have generally struggled to produce crops since acquiring land from the white farmers, a consequence blamed by analysts on a prolonged dry spell and the government's failure to provide farmers with agricultural inputs in time for planting.

Environmental degradation

"In the unlikely event of the government importing enough electricity for everybody in the near future, then we will run out of clients, which is why we are selling as much firewood as possible," Chamunorwa said.

"I don't see how you can expect me to worry about environmental degradation at the expense of my wellbeing. I think the solution is very simple: if the government generated and imported enough electricity, then few people would be interested in buying firewood," said Chamunorwa.

Farms on the fringes of the city have been denuded the quickest of trees, because petrol to drive to farms further away remains in short supply. Customers are given a choice of hard and soft woods, as hard woods typically burn longer.

The effects of the logging spree are easily seen in the streets of Harare, where avenues of trees have been felled and the sight of people carrying large bundles of freshly cut wood in the city's central business district is a common sight.

Adolph Virimai, who lives in the upmarket Harare suburb of Mabelreign, told IRIN: "Ordinarily, I would have wanted to install a generator or use solar energy to provide alternative energy, but that is too expensive for me. I would rather settle for firewood, which is much more affordable. Right now we are in the middle of winter, when we need energy to cook and to warm our water."

Pombiyadonha Bhokisi, another farmer turned firewood vendor, said he had begun buying wood from adjacent farms for resale to city dwellers unable to afford the journey from the city.

"I hire several trucks to bring in firewood from nearby farms for resale in Chitungwiza [a satellite town 35km from Harare] where I stay, and because firewood is in high demand I expect to buy my own second hand truck soon to enable me to ferry the firewood."