Zimbabwe, rated as the worst off among six southern African countries affected by famine since last year, could produce nearly enough of the staple grain maize to feed all its 11,6-million people, a regional food security agency has said.
According to preliminary estimated harvest figures contained in a monthly food security report by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fewsnet), the current season’s maize, or corn, production should be 1,289-million tons.
”This represents about 90% of five-year average production and close to a 160%increase over the 2001/02 seasons’s harvest,” said Fewsnet in its latest monthly food security update report.
The agency had predicted earlier that this year that maize production could fall as much as 77% below the recent five-year average.
The UN said a food security assessment survey is under way in Zimbabwe and a full report will be made available next month and ”form the basis of any future appeals to donors”.
The World Food Programme said if the Fewsnet figures were accurate it will mean that most areas will have enough food to last them for up to nine months, but there would still be patches of famine.
”There might not be a significant role for aid this year,” said WFP representative Luis Clemens.
Until this month, maize supplies have been erratic and inadequate and, where the staple grain has been available, it has been expensive, leaving at least two-thirds of the population of nearly 12-million in a situation of food insecurity.
The famine that has stalked six countries in southern Africa has been caused primarily by severe drought, but Zimbabwe’s case was worsened by President Robert Mugabe’s chaotic and sometimes violent land reform programme launched in early 2000.
Under the reforms, land was taken from white farmers and redistributed to landless blacks.
But Mugabe himself admitted that all was not well with the exercise at his ruling Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) party annual conference in December.
He said that some of the new black farmers to whom formerly white-owned land had been allocated are still to take up the land and that there were claims and counterclaims for other pieces of land.
The resultant reduction of hectarage under maize was, experts have said, bound to affect the harvest even if sufficient rain falls. – Sapa-AFP