More than two million Zimbabweans will suffer from food shortages this year, according to a new report that cast more doubt on government forecasts of a bumper harvest.
The report by a committee of United Nations (UN) agencies, non governmental organisations as well as Zimbabwe government departments recommends that food aid be sought ”for the most vulnerable people who are food insecure up until March 2005”.
”A total of 2.3 million people will not be able to meet their minimum cereal needs during the 2004-2005 season,” said the summary of the report by the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee.
The report draws its conclusions from a survey done in April.
Since then, the government has said it is expecting a bumper harvest and will not be appealing for international food aid.
President Robert Mugabe’s government has forecast a bumper harvest of 2,4-million tonnes of maize, enough to cover domestic needs.
Mugabe insisted in a television interview last month that Zimbabweans were not hungry.
”Why foist this food upon us? We don’t want to be choked,” he said.
The new figure of just over two million hungry people is a significant drop from the five million or so people that aid agencies had predicted would require food aid this year.
According to the assessment committee’s survey, Zimbabwe’s two eastern provinces — Mashonaland East and the densely populated Manicaland province — will have the biggest grain deficit.
The report followed on the heels of an assessment by UN envoy for humanitarian needs in southern Africa, James Morris, who said the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has substantially scaled down food aid to the country since last year.
”The WFP fed 6,5-million people in 2003. In March this year, we fed 4,4-million. This month, we fed 640 000 people,” he said.
Morris called Zimbabwe’s forecast of a bumper crop ”maybe one of the most remarkable turn-arounds in history if they are able to go from this huge food deficit situation to a situation where they will have enough food to feed their own population.”
The UN would still be willing to continue to help, Morris added, but warned: ”I guess one of our concerns is that, if per chance, their strategy didn’t work out and we were called upon to be helpful and respond, this is not something you can do on 24-hour notice.”
The UN has been involved in the distribution of emergency food aid here for the past three years of critical shortages, blamed by aid agencies on drought and a controversial four-year-old land reform programme. — Sapa-AFP