ZIMBABWE is to import 100_000 tons of maize from neighbouring South Africa in a bid to avert a looming food shortage, Zimbabwean Agriculture Minister Joseph Made said on Monday. The 100_000 tons will be stored away until April or May 2002, when the county’s maize stocks are expected to run out, the minister said in the state-run newspaper The Herald.
The decision came after a weekend meeting in Harare of 14 members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which agreed to lift regional trade barriers on the staple food.
Other SADC countries are expected to place their orders with the South African government within a week “so that South Africa does not sell its surplus maize to people outside the region,” Made said.
Agricultural production in Zimbabwe has been crippled because of land invasions on commercial farms.
Other SADC members which will urgently import maize are Zambia, which needs 300_000 tons, Angola (257_000 tons), Malawi (210_000), Lesotho (147_000) Botswana (128_000), Namibia (119_000), Swaziland (82_000) and Mauritius (35_000). – AFP