Zimbabwe farmers have only planted 10% of the targeted winter wheat-crop hectarage just two weeks before the recommended planting deadline lapses, official media reported, stoking fears of bread shortages.
The Southern African country has grappled with shortages of food since 2001 partly due to drought, but critics say this has been worsened by President Robert Mugabe’s seizure of land from white commercial farmers to redistribute among blacks.
The black farmers have complained of lack of farming inputs such as fertilisers, chemicals, seed and fuel, and some lack commercial farming skills.
A parliamentary portfolio committee on agriculture was told that the target of 76 000ha — which would have produced 400 000 tonnes of wheat — would not be achieved due to shortages of fuel and fertiliser.
Wheat is the country’s second staple grain, after maize.
”Close to 8 000ha have been planted so far and we need to go faster than this if we are to meet the targeted hectarage,” Shadreck Mlambo, the permanent secretary for agriculture, was quoted by the official Herald as telling the committee.
The recommended date for planting is before May 31 and wheat planted after that will result in lower yields, which Mlambo said was ”not worth it”.
Another official told the committee that farmers would need to till 2 000ha of land a day and plant the wheat crop at the same time, but this required at least 1 000 tractors, which were not available.
The government had last week announced a new power-cut programme to shift supplies to irrigate the winter crop amid looming food shortages.
Zimbabwe already faces a huge maize deficit this year and Malawi says it will export 400 000 tonnes of maize to its southern neighbour.
Analysts say inflation is likely to spiral further as food prices jump on the back of shortages.
Inflation has passed 2 200 percent, which is the highest in the world and a constant reminder of the country’s economic crisis, which has seen unemployment climbing to about 80% and left many families unable to feed themselves.
The United Nations World Food Programme had earlier said at least 1,4-million Zimbabweans would need food aid until this month but some agencies say the number is likely to grow after a failed summer crop in the 2006/7 season.
Mugabe has defended his land-seizure drive as necessary to redress colonial imbalances, which left 70% of Zimbabwe’s best land in the hands of a small number of white commercial farmers. — Reuters