Good morning ladies, and welcome to today’s edition of Party Political Propaganda ™ with me, your friendly neighbourhood State-run daily newspaper!

In today’s show we have enthusiasm! optimism! revisionism! (today is Ism Day) as we discuss reports of a new fertiliser subsidy to small-scale farmers.

But wait! What’s this? Government, through the Reserve Bank, has been effectively bankrolling these farmers for years, with both inputs and fuel? O you naysayers, puppets of Bush! Blair! Brown! (every day is B Day), don’t try and ruin this for us.

Malawi has produced 3,8 million tonnes of maize, the bulk of the crop coming from small-scale farmers who were supported to the tune of US$186 million.

What Malawi has achieved is not insurmountable as Zimbabwe almost hit the 3million kg mark when it produced 2,1 million tonnes of maize in 1993.

Almost? Almost. Really, “almost” is your word of choice? Really, unnamed Herald editorialist?

Let’s talk about almost for a bit – adjective, meaning “similar to”. How the fuck can 2.1 of anything be similar to 3? Question, if I have $2.1 fuckzillion zimbabwe dollars, do I almost have 3 fuckzillion?

But wait, why are we even debating it? Because, as far as we can see, Malawi produced three point EIGHT million tonnes of maize, and we only produced two point ONE million tonnes in 1993.

Do you know what 3.8m tonnes is? If our production in 1993 was 2.1, then double that is 4.2, yet Malawi have just produced 3.8m.

3.8m tonnes is ALMOST double what we produced in 1993. So what are we talking about? Are you almost out of your goddamn mind?

With this magnitude of support, which has been lacking in previous seasons, we believe our farmers are geared for maximum production, barring adverse weather conditions.

Caveat! Caveat! Adverse weather conditions! Oh darn those nasty-ass adverse weather conditions!!!  Darn you El Nino,  you bane of small-scale farmers everywhere, we haven’t even started farming yet but already you’re taking food from the mouths of our children!

Successive droughts and the politically induced sanctions have crippled farmers’ ability to secure inputs and get back the country to production levels of more than a decade ago.

Thar she blows! The s-word. Today they’re not “illegal”, they’re not “western”, but they are “politically induced”. No shit! Of course they’re politically induced, politicians from other countries don’t want certain politicians from this country visiting their countries because certain politicians from this country are accused of being murderous thieving bastards! (NB accused, Censor Guy).

We are convinced and encouraged by Government’s commitment and interest in capacitating small-scale farmers so that they are once again able to become the custodians of the country’s food security.

Yes, we are. I’m very convinced, but I have questions. When were small-scale farmers ever the “custodians of the country’s food security”. And when was the use of a present particle ever anything but awkward? Capacitating?

Maybe it was back in nineteen-gocha-nhembe when the country spanned the distance past your great-great-ancestor’s field to that other muhacha tree round the corner from that other churu there by the river there?

Our small-scale and communal farmers have always produced the bulk of the maize and cotton from small pieces of land.

Really? REALLY? So why, pray tell, did maize and cotton production virtually CEASE TO EXIST when we destroyed the commercial farming sector, hounding whites off our land? Surely with the increase in small-scale and communal farmers, our production should have immediately corrected to previous levels, with the new farmers picking up the slack where the whites fell of.

Ten points to Bra Eddie for pointing this out. Minus ten points to Bra Eddie for actually buying this fucking newspaper.

Score? Almost zero points.