The Zimbabwean government has admitted to suffering a food shortage, ZimOnline reported on Tuesday.
It quoted Agriculture Minister Joseph Made as saying the country did not harvest enough food last season, and that an army led programme to produce food had failed.
”The country has already imported maize to cater for the deficit,” Made said.
”We will continue to import food if the need arises.”
The government has until now insisted that Zimbabwe harvested about 1,8-million tonnes of the staple maize from the 2005/06 season, enough to meet national consumption.
Maize-meal, the main food for more than 90% of the 12-million Zimbabweans, is in short supply in some parts of the country, especially in southern Matabeleland.
Made said Operation Maguta, a scheme under which soldiers were moved onto former white farms to produce crops such as maize and wheat, failed because of lack of resources.
”Last agricultural season the project failed because we did not give enough resources to it,” the minister said. — Sapa