Zimbabwe’s government has said aid agencies do not have permission to compile food production forecasts after some organisations projected the country faced a huge grain deficit, local reports said on Wednesday.
Agriculture Minister Joseph Made complained that aid organisations were conducting ”backdoor assessment exercises” and urged rural communities not to cooperate with the studies, the state-run Herald newspaper reported.
Zimbabwe has been plagued by meagre harvests since the government began implementing a controversial land reform programme in 2000, and the authorities are keen for this year’s growing season to be a success.
But recent reports have suggested Zimbabwe’s food woes are far from over. According to some reports, a harvest of only around 700 000 tonnes of the staple maize is expected this year, falling far short of the country’s annual requirements of 1,8-million tonnes of the crop.
Made also said the state’s Agriculture and Rural Extension Services should ”stop giving speculative reports” on crop yields, the paper reported.
The minister said only a new committee that will operate under the stewardship of the Central Statistics Office had the mandate to carry out such assessments, the paper reported. – Sapa-DPA