Zimbabwe’s government on Wednesday said the grain harvest will reach more than 2,8-million tons this year, enough to meet the country’s needs, but the opposition said the forecast was ”absurd.”
Agriculture Minister Joseph Made was quoted by the state-owned Herald newspaper as saying that the government’s final crop assessment for the 2003 to 2004 season showed that ”the total production will be 2 808 995 tons”.
Zimbabwe, which has over the past three years relied heavily on food imports and handouts, announced on Tuesday that this year it will not require food aid from international donors and would not need food imports.
Of the 2,8-million tons, 2,4-million tons will be staple corn, which government says surpasses the national annual requirements of between 1,8-million and two million tons.
The opposition Movement for Democartic Change (MDC) described the government’s crop prediction as ”absurd”.
”Their forecasts have been dismissed by aid agencies as a gross distortion of the reality on the ground,” said MDC spokesperson Paul Temba Nyathi.
The MDC estimates that Zimbabwe may face a maize deficit of between 600 000 and 900 000 tons this year.
UN food agencies recently suspended a mission to assess crop and food supplies in the southern African country when local administrators interrupted their work.
The opposition said the ban was aimed at avoiding an exposure of the ”inherent failings” of government’s mismanaged land reforms.
Aid agencies blame the serious food shortages in the country over the past three years on consecutive droughts and President Robert Mugabe’s government’s controversial land reforms which displaced most of the large-scale commercial farmers from their farms.
They estimate that around five million people are facing famine in Zimbabwe. – Sapa-AFP