Back to Index

ZIMBABWE: Filling food gap an 'enormous challenge', says report
IRIN News
May 24, 2005

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=47278

JOHANNESBURG - Vulnerable Zimbabweans will need assistance to overcome another failed harvest, but a foreign currency shortage remains a stumbling block to importing adequate food stocks, says the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET).

Already struggling to cope with the combined impact of HIV/AIDS and an economic crisis, smallholder farmers in Zimbabwe were hit by a dry spell that wiped out much of their crops, and commercial farming has not recovered from the controversial fast-track land reform that began in 2002.

The World Food Programme (WFP) spokesman in Zimbabwe, Makena Walker, told IRIN the agency was already providing food aid to around one million beneficiaries.

"This includes people affected by HIV/AIDS, schoolchildren, supplementary feeding for malnourished children under five - which is being done in 40 health centres in Bulawayo and Harare cities - and we are also supporting orphans and vulnerable children," she said.

In December last year WFP conducted a once-off food aid distribution to another 1.5 million people.

FEWS NET noted that the number of people in need of assistance could rise this year.

"The majority of farming households will harvest nothing and are already dependent on the market for all their food requirements, at a time when own crop production would normally be their dominant source of food," FEWS NET said in its latest report, which classified the situation in Zimbabwe as an "emergency".

Compounding the problem is the fact that "income opportunities in rural Zimbabwe will be more limited this year than they were last year, making it difficult for many to compensate for their crop losses through purchases, even if the food is available on the market", because poor cash-crop production has limited rural incomes.

"Cotton and tobacco normally provide important seasonal cash income to smallholder farming households, but production ... is expected to be down this year," the report observed.

A combination of poor rainfall and limited credit support to cotton farmers by marketing companies during the 2004/05 cropping season "resulted in a smaller area planted to cotton, as well as a decline in yields," the US-funded network said.

The Zimbabwe Cotton Producers Association estimates the 2004/05 cotton harvest at between 140,000 mt and 150,000 mt, down from last season's harvest of about 333,000 mt.

"While this will reduce cash income for better off cotton farmers, it also limits the capacity of these households to pay for casual labour supplied by the poor households, thereby reducing poor households' capacity to make up for the food gap they are facing this consumption year," the report explained.

In urban areas, shortages of basic commodities on both the formal and informal markets during April meant consumers had to pay "exorbitant prices" for cooking oil, sugar, milk and maize-meal. "The price increases have continuously drained the meagre disposable incomes of poor urban households," FEWS NET noted.

In March 2005 the cost of the monthly basket for a low-income urban household of six, monitored by the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe, stood at Zim $2.1 million (US $233). "Given recent fuel shortages, transport costs are likely to go up as well," the report added.

To counter deepening levels of vulnerability in both urban and rural areas, the bulk of Zimbabwe's 1.8 million mt maize requirement will have to be imported.

"It will be critical for the government, private sector and the humanitarian community to create effective partnerships to ensure adequate in-country distribution of this food," said FEWS NET, as this would require "substantial foreign currency resources".

The early warning unit added that "considerable improvement" would be needed in the "operational efficiency of the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) and its capacity to move and distribute grain within the country, and a widening of the range of players in the distribution of food in the country to include greater private sector participation".

Zimbabwe's foreign currency shortage "has been deteriorating steadily since 1999, with a deficit of over US $600 million reached in 2004".

Since the beginning of 2005, the demand at foreign currency auctions has grown to about US $215 million, far outstripping the US $11 million usually made available by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

"The low average prices for tobacco so far this year, and the fall of world cotton prices from about US $0.75 last year to about US $0.58 this year, puts further constraints on the foreign currency reserves," FEWS NET pointed out.

Apart from needing forex to import food, the county also has to find enough money to bring in fuel, electricity and medical supplies.

"Given the current shortages, importing adequate food for the nation in the current consumption year is going to be an enormous challenge for Zimbabwe," the report concluded.

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP