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SHOTLIST 29 August 2008 1. Wide of President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe visiting agricultural fair, surrounded by media and officials 2. Mid of Mugabe and officials 3. Wide of Mugabe at fair 4. Mugabe and officials looking at cow, laughing and walking away 5. Mugabe looking at cattle 6. Mid of cows 7. Tilt up from sacks of produce to Mugabe and officials 8. Mugabe at fair 28 August 2008 9. Wide pan of Mbare vegetable market in Harare, traders seated next to piles of vegetables, shoppers 10. Close up piles of onions, with prices 11. SOUNDBITE (English) Vox Pop, Name not given, shopper at Mbare market: "Every day we see a different price, every morning we see a different price. I was expecting to buy more things today but because of the price today I could not manage, I only managed to buy some few fruits, that's all." 12. Cutaway pile of tomatoes for sale in market 13. SOUNDBITE (English) Vox Pop, Name not given, shopper at Mbare market: "I used to eat some fruits each and every day when I come to the msika (market) but nowadays, I am going out without even munching a banana right now because things are tight right now." 14. Various of men unloading a truck load of cabbages and piling them up 15. SOUNDBITE (Shona) Vox Pop, Name not given, vegetable trader at Mbare market: "Business is going down. In the old days there was a lot of farming but now we have only a few farmers so everything is going down." 16. Wide shot trader tying onions together 17. SOUNDBITE (Shona) Vox Pop, vegetable trader at Mbare market: +++over tilt up from onions to his face+++ "In the old days, we used to get lots of deliveries, lots of trucks used to come here. Nowadays there are just a few that come; I think the reason is that diesel is hard to come by now, plus the farms can not even afford fertilisers now because they are expensive, so now we get little produce." 18. Shopper hands money to trader, he counts it 19. Close up of money in a box (trader's takings) 20. SOUNDBITE (Shona) Vox Pop, vegetable trader at Mbare market: "Now it takes about five days or so to finish selling the stuff that we get, compared to one day in the past." 21. Mid of market, stalls, traders, woman walking with a sack balanced on her head STORYLINE Zimbabwe's controversial president officially opened the country's main agricultural show on Friday, even as the country's economic woes continued unabated and ordinary Zimbabweans described the difficulties they were facing. Robert Mugabe, flanked by officials and surrounded by media toured Harare's annual Agricultural Show. The fair was once a major event, but has deteriorated in recent years along with Zimbabwe's farm-based economy. Traders and shoppers at Mbare vegetable market in another part of the capital said they were feeling the pinch of the struggling economy. The volume of trade at the market has in recent years declined greatly, and the little produce sold there has become prohibitively expensive. The vegetable market is located in the high density poor suburb of Mbare, and farmers from districts around Harare bring their produce to the market every morning to sell. However, supplies have dwindled to a trickle in recent years as farmers suffer the effects of hyperinflation, making fertiliser for their fields and fuel for their trucks impossibly expensive. In June, the official rate of inflation was 11,250,000 percent, according to the Central Statistical Office (CSO), but experts believe the actual rate to be much higher. Shoppers are also suffering as the produce on sale has gone up in price - one man said he could only afford to buy a bit of fruit to take home, and could not even afford to snack on a banana while he shopped. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/589288cbb2f5c8ab3758c7a39f9b8481 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork