Zimbabwe faces a shortfall of 1,1-million tonnes of the national staple maize this year, the United States-based food-monitoring Famine Early Warning System Network (Fewsnet) said.
Fewsnet, in an assessment report received here on Tuesday, said the southern African country is most likely to harvest 700 000 tonnes of maize for the 2005/2006 farming season, against an annual consumption of 1,8-million tonnes.
”It is still expected that cereal harvest will exceed last year’s drought-affected harvest,” Fewsnet said, pegging this year’s harvest at 700 000-tonnes.
Zimbabwe’s farming season ends in May.
The report classifies Zimbabwe as a country for ”High Priority-Urgent Action Required,” along with Chad, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia.
”Agricultural preparedness in the country was very poor and this has led to failure to take full advantage of good rainfall, with farmers forced to plant late and reduce planted areas as a result of late acquisition or non-availability of necessary inputs,” the report said.
The US agency also said that the widespread shortage and high costs of farming inputs such as seeds, fuel, fertilisers and power had severely limited the farming capacity of both small and commercial farmers.
Zimbabwe is currently in the throes of economic crisis characterised by runaway inflation, soaring poverty levels, an unemployment rate hovering at over 70% and chronic shortages of fuel and basic goods like cornmeal.
Over 4-million Zimbabweans in a population of 13-million face food shortages, according to United Nations agencies.
President Robert Mugabe’s government has attributed the food shortages to drought, denying that it was a result of its controversial land reforms which saw agricultural productivity grinding to a near halt after some 4 000 white farmers were forcibly removed from their properties since 2000.
At its peak, the agricultural sector accounted for about 16,5% of gross domestic product, 33% of foreign exchange earnings and 26% of employment, according to finance-ministry figures. — AFP
