{Zimbabwe has appealed for $300 million from donors to avert hunger.}
Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Tuesday said the cash-strapped government would not be able to address the food deficit on its own.
“Approximately $300 million is required to import food to cover the deficit and see us through to the next harvest, hoping that it will be significantly better than the current one,” Mr Mnangagwa said.
“While we need 1.4 million tonnes of maize a year for consumption, our produce for the 2014-15 season has gone down by approximately 49 per cent.
“I am therefore calling upon all our partners, from development agencies and the private sector, to assist us in providing the necessary resources to ensure that none of the communities nationwide is exposed to hunger and starvation,” he added.
Zimbabwe’s poor crop harvest was largely blamed on the erratic rainfall during the 2014/15 season and general poor performance of farmers allocated land seized from the white settlers.
Other obligations
The country has experienced perennial poor harvests since it embarked on a violent land reform programme that began in 2000.
Production of some cash crops such as tobacco have increased since the land reform, but maize harvests continue to decline.
Zimbabwe now imports most of its maize from Zambia, which absorbed a number of white farmers who were forced off their land in a programme President Robert Mugabe argued was meant to correct colonial imbalances.
Donors usually feed more than half of Zimbabwe’s population of 14 million.
President Mugabe’s government is struggling to pay civil servants and meet other obligations.
The government is also struggling to finance agriculture with only $161 million spent on inputs the previous season.
Chaos in the agriculture sector has not abated as President Mugabe’s supporters continue to invade productive farms.
{{Africa Review}}
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