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afrol News, 11 February - While more than 7 million Zimbabweans are expected to need food assistance to manage the coming months, the Mugabe government is said to tackle the situation poorly. The state is importing less food from abroad than planned and fails to distribute the food it is supposed to. Meanwhile, it has intensified the campaign against commercial farmers, leaving even more lands uncultivated. According to the latest reports on food security in Zimbabwe, people can expect at least another critical year. There has been an increase in rains during the current growing season, but rains were far under average. When harvests start in March, the immediate hunger will be stilled, but not even half of the country's yearly consume will have been produced. But is not only due to years of failing rains that people are starving in Zimbabwe. Poor government performance also has made its toll, according to the US Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS), which usually does not turn to political analyses in its reports warning about food insecurity. According to FEWS, the Zimbabwean government for example had agreed to purchase seed maize from South Africa, in an attempt to avert seed shortages this growing season. The purchase had however been too small and "it came too late to make any meaningful contribution to the 2002/03 planting season," FEWS reports. Also government distribution of food aid gets an unfavourable assessment. While authorities had taken the responsibility to hand out 25,000 tons of maize in December, it had only managed to distribute 17,000 tons among Zimbabwe's hungry. The opposition additionally claims government food programmes are going astray. They are allegedly systematically denied to opposition followers and the ruling party is reported to have sold parts of the food aid on the black market. According to FEWS, the government further only raised half of the estimated Z$ 80 billion required to finance the agricultural season for Zimbabwean cultivators. Food producers, which have been struggling for four years with inadequate rains and political unrest, therefore do not get access to needed credits to buy seed maize, fertiliser and other necessities to maintain food production. To the lack of available capital is added the lack of commodities in official markets. Fertiliser shortages had already "had a negative impact on production," FEWS says. Many imported products cannot be found in Zimbabwe due to the unrealistic pricing of the Zimbabwe dollar. These products are only available at the overpriced black market. The most disputed step by the Zimbabwean government has however been the intensification of land reforms in the middle of the disastrous drought. There are now only some 600 commercial farms left, which is down from over 4000 as land reform began. These commercial farms were the secure producers of Zimbabwe's main food staple, maize, and main export product, tobacco. Production is reported to have decreased significantly on all the formerly commercial farm land now split up and distributed to the followers of President Mugabe. There are reports of vast uncultivated land areas in the aftermath of land reform. - Land reform has also had a negative impact on production, FEWS clearly states. The area cultivated under large scale commercial farms had "decreased from 60,000 Ha in 2000/01 to 34,000 Ha last year and to 20,000 Ha in 2002/03 season; tobacco decreased from 67,100 Ha in 2000/01 and from a five year average of 83,000 Ha to about 49,500 Ha in 2002/3." During the last months of last year, FEWS also reports that the number of commercial farm workers affected by the fast track resettlement program has doubled. At present, there are one million landless Zimbabweans that used to have their income from the commercial farms. These are now unemployed and depend on external food aid. Currently, organisations such as Farm Community Trust of Zimbabwe have started feeding programs in the Mashonaland Provinces - which is particularly affected by the land reform - "but the level of assistance so far has not kept pace with the needs," FEWS reports. Therefore, the food security prospects for the
2003-04 season (April 2003 to March 2004) "are gloomy due to the low
harvest prospects," FEWS concludes. A food deficit of 1 million tons "is
expected."
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