Gwanda, they have yet to identify implementing stores, which means distribution is likely to be weeks’ away.11 In mid October, Finance Minister Tendai Biti presented a statement on agricultural inputs for the current season. In this he announced that out of a budget of $248 million for agriculture in 2011, inputs worth $75 million had been secured for A2 (small scale) and vulnerable farmers.12  100,000 vulnerable farmers are to receive a free input package of seeds: maize (10kg), sorghum (5kg) and millet (5 kg), as well as 2 x 50 kg fertilizer, on the basis of presenting vouchers at their local parastatal Grain Marketing Board (GMB) outlet, showing that they have been identified as vulnerable. $8.1 million will cover these free inputs.  250,000 communal farmers will receive the same package, on a subsidized basis, in which they pay a reduced rate, also on presentation at GMB of vouchers showing that they have been identified as qualifying. $20.3 million will cover these subsidized inputs. The promise of free or subsidized inputs to benefit 350,000 communal farmers is highly commendable, but the question remains, when exactly these inputs are going to reach farmers on the ground? In the last days of October, Agricultural Extension (AREX) officers in Gwanda had only the haziest awareness of these input schemes. At the end of October, the processes by which families will be identified for free or subsidized vouchers was opaque at the district level, to all involved ��� families, implementing NGOs and AREX. On 28th October, an alarmingly blunt official in the Bulawayo AREX offices dismissed Biti’s statement regarding free and subsidized seed as “politics”, saying that he did not believe what he had only read about in the newspapers, and had yet to receive any kind of circular about the scheme.13 He reported that in September there was an AREX meeting in Harare at which a Ministry of Agriculture official had talked of each province receiving $20,000 towards free inputs for villagers, but the Bulawayo AREX official commented that since then, “everything had gone quiet”, with no further word on this matter. AREX stated that they have so far done nothing about trying to assess who on the ground might be eligible for free or subsidized inputs, as they had no instructions to do so or how to proceed. In any case, there is inadequate transport to get down to village level to do assessments on a vast scale. With the experience of many years, the AREX official’s final word on the subject of free inputs was: “As far as I am concerned, just go and buy your own seeds and don’t wait for something to materialize from government because it will come too late to be useful – if it comes at all….” 11 Interview with CARE, Gwanda, 28 October 2011. CARE is the implementing NGO for WFP in Gwanda. 12 Tendai Biti: “Statement on 2011‐2012 agricultural inputs.” 15 October 2011. As well as outlining the process of getting inputs to A1 and small commercial farmers, Biti states the need for the land resettlement programme to be finalized, along with a land audit, research into climate change, training of farmers, and the opening out of the grain market from the monopoly of the GMB to a more sustainable private sector market, with the GMB becoming the buyer of last resort in the future 13 Interview, AREX offices, Bulawayo, 28 October 2011. 10