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Zimbabwe seen to need South African food, but who pays?
Reuters
April 15, 2005

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/ACIO-6BGJVB?OpenDocument&rc=1&cc=zwe

JOHANNESBURG - Drought and poor seed distribution may force Zimbabwe to import more South African food, traders say, but many doubt whether President Robert Mugabe's government has the money.

Aid workers say this year's drought would have cut the staple maize crop anyway, while Mugabe's critics say chaotic seizures of white-owned farms over the past five years have left the nation's once-thriving farm sector in ruins.

"Even in the commercial areas it would have been bad," said one aid worker. "But those guys would have had irrigation. There could be real suffering this year."

Some wonder if Zimbabwe's food needs might be funded by China or Iran -- both wooed as part of Mugabe's "Look East" policy aimed at developing new friends for a government widely reviled in the West.

"We don't know where they will get the money from," said another aid worker. "(Iranian President Mohammad) Khatami was in Zimbabwe recently, so we wonder if it's someone like that."

With state-supplied seeds and fertilisers arriving late or not at all, some aid workers say Zimbabwe's overall maize crop could be as little as 300,000 to 700,000 tonnes -- well short of the 1.8 million tonnes they say the country needs, and estimates of a one million-tonne 2004 crop.

South Africa on the other hand is expecting its best harvest in over a decade after good rain, but much of the rest of the region also faces shortages after late-season droughts destroyed much of the crop in Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique, leaving South Africa the only regional source for grain.

Private Buyers
Some traders say the rest of southern Africa may need as much as 1.5 million tonnes of South African maize to stave off starvation in a region where the HIV/AIDS pandemic has left many weakened and unable to farm. Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and the kingdoms of Swaziland and Lesotho can either buy the food themselves or ask for food aid, but no one knows how Zimbabwe will meet its shortfall.

Zimbabwe, along with much of the rest of Southern Africa, saw serious food shortages in 2002-2003, with as much as half the country's 14 million people needing food aid.

Agencies like the World Food Programme saw operations significantly cut back in 2004, when Zimbabwe said it had enough to feed its people, and economic decline has left the country with little foreign exchange to buy imports, traders say.

Some aid workers had expected relief agencies to be invited back after parliamentary polls at the end of March -- criticised by Western countries as unfree -- but nothing has happened.

Traders say food is moving into Zimbabwe anyway, as the 2004 harvest is exhausted and the main 2005 crop awaits harvesting towards May. Further orders were expected, they said.

There were no signs the South African government is buying on behalf of Zimbabwe, as it has done in the past, traders said, leading some to talk of Chinese or Iranian involvement. Both have invested in Zimbabwe in recent years as western donors flee.

South African rail and road transport operators ship some 40,000 tonnes of food a month to private buyers around the southern Zimbabwe city of Bulawayo, rail operator Spoornet said.

Some South African traders say they distrust Zimbabwe's state Grain Marketing Board (GMB) after it failed to honour contracts last year, and a few say the government is using private buyers rather than the GMB to purchase its grain.
Although current orders are being processed and paid for, traders say large future orders may to be treated with caution until Zimbabwe's ability to pay becomes clear.

Other trade sources say as much as 70,000 tonnes of white maize could be already in transit to Zimbabwe from South Africa, with a possible further 80,000 tonnes on the way.

"I think you'll see the export figures to Zimbabwe rise next week or the week after," a trader said.

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