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Zim will not require food aid: Mangwana
The Herald
May 12, 2004

http://www.herald.co.zw/index.php?id=31836&pubdate=2004-05-12

ZIMBABWE will this season produce 2,4 million tonnes of maize of which 1,2 million tonnes is anticipated to be delivered to the market, including sorghum and millet.

As a result, the country will this year not require food imports, or food aid from international donors, Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister Cde Paul Mangwana said.

Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Cde Joseph Made said yesterday the more than 2 million tonnes of maize to be produced surpasses the national annual grain requirement of between 1,5 million and 2 million tonnes.

In a statement, Cde Made said results from the final crop assessment for the 2003/2004 season showed that 2 431 182t of maize would be produced this season.

From the 1 200 000t that is anticipated to be delivered to the market, including sorghum and millet, "the total production will be 2 805 995 tonnes", he said.

The land reform programme, Cde Made said, has enabled A1 and A2 farmers to demonstrate that Zimbabwe’s agricultural productivity potential stands at more than 15 times given what had been achieved this season.

Government would soon establish, through the ministry, the Agricultural Marketing Authority (AMA) that would deal with the issue of pricing of agricultural commodities, he said.

"In this regard, Government will speedily establish the AMA so that Government intervention as regards reaping where we have sown and pay fair prices to farmers is achieved." Cde Made said.

The minister said Government would massively support A1 and A2 farmers during the 2004/2005 agricultural production season, particularly in the production of wheat, maize, sorghum and small grains, tobacco, cotton, horticulture, beef and diary production.

He said the National Agricultural Strategy Framework for the 2004/2005 season would soon be released and this would be the road map in setting targets to be achieved by the agricultural sector.

According to the final crop assessment results, the total national production of Virginia tobacco would be 70 281 tonnes, cotton 471 671 tonnes and groundnuts 138 384 tonnes.

Farmers have already started delivering the early harvested maize crop to Grain Marketing Board depots, while harvesting for the late-planted crop has intensified in various parts of the country.

Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister Cde Mangwana on Monday said the country had produced enough food for domestic consumption, and the Government had already informed donors of this position.

"We don’t need food aid from outside the country. We generally believe we produced enough for local consumption, and we have told our international partners about this," he said.

"There are some areas that would have food deficits, but these would be covered through internal food distribution, and not imports."

The country was forced to import food and appeal for assistance from international donors in the last two years after being hit by consecutive droughts.

But it experienced good rains in the 2003-2004 agricultural season and indications were that Zimbabwe could produce a bumper harvest, particularly of maize.

This will be the first time in about three years that the country would not import food. Last year, about three million people required food aid, forcing the Government to import 1,3 million tonnes of food and international donors chipping in with 500 000 tonnes.

Cde Mangwana said the Government had only appealed to international donors this year for assistance for agricultural recovery and social programmes such as the rehabilitation of boreholes and other farming infrastructure, and feeding vulnerable groups.

"We only want assistance for basic recovery and development programmes, and if we have good rains again this year, we will kiss goodbye to food imports and donor food assistance," he said.

The minister said the appeal for assistance for agricultural recovery and support to vulnerable social groups was contained in a US$200 million programme the Government had submitted to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) covering the 2004-2005 period.

He said aid agencies such as the World Food Programme would, however, continue to provide food assistance in the country, but only to vulnerable groups like Aids orphans and elderly people.

"They will continue offering assistance, but this will be to targeted groups only, not to communities on a larger scale as before," he said.

The WFP, the biggest foreign food donor in Zimbabwe, has already announced it is reducing food distribution in the country, citing a good harvest.

"In consultation with the Government, WFP is drastically scaling back general food distributions in May and June. However, assistance to targeted activities such as school feeding, supplementary feeding and home-based care for HIV/Aids affected households will continue," the UN agency said in a statement.

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