Zimbabwe’s bakers are losing staff and profits as the Russian invasion of Ukraine disrupts the global economy.
Harare, Zimbabwe – Four months ago, Simba Muchingami was a very happy man.
Customers were queueing outside his modest bakery in Kuwadzana, a high-density residential suburb west of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, to get freshly baked sugar buns, doughnuts and other confectioneries.
But these days, his medium-sized electric industrial oven is often cold even by mid-morning, unlike times before when things were already rowdy at dawn.
“This place used to be packed around this time,” the 33 year old told Al Jazeera. “From 5am, we were busy. Now there is no one.”
A tray containing some doughnuts sits abandoned on the floor.
Packed fresh sugar buns are neatly arranged on a large table but there are no customers. In the corner, a worker sits idly on a chair.
In 2000, former President Robert Mugabe seized farms from white commercial farmers – who had gotten them in colonial times – in a controversial land reforms programme, and distributed them to new Black owners.
Most of them had little or no capital, leading to declining agricultural output, forcing Zimbabwe to look abroad for alternatives.
Since then, it has relied on imported wheat – as much as 40 percent of its total imports came from Russia in 2021 – for bread, a staple in the country.
After Russia invaded Ukraine in February, global supply chains were disrupted, triggering a massive jump in commodity prices – that has severely affected many countries, including in Africa.
