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Zimbabwe faces food shortage due fuel crunch - agency
Reuters
September 22, 2006

http://za.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe faces food shortages because a severe fuel crunch has prevented farmers from delivering maize to the state grain agency, an official said on Friday.

Farmers have delivered less than half the maize targeted by President Robert Mugabe's government, the head of the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) was quoted as saying in a state-owned newspaper.

The southern African nation has forecast a 1.8-million-tonne maize harvest this year. Half of it was expected to be sold to the GMB as sole distributor of the staple crop.

But GMB acting chief executive Samuel Muvuti said only 400,000 tonnes had been delivered to its depots. The selling season traditionally ends in September when farmers start preparing for the next farming season.

"Our major challenge has been fuel, we can't visit all the areas we intend to and farmers find it difficult to deliver the commodity," Muvuti told the Bulawayo based Chronicle newspaper.

Analysts say the GMB's price of Z$31,000 a tonne, which was set in March has been eroded by inflation and had forced some farmers to sell their maize to alternative markets.

Aid agencies have cast doubt on the official crop forecast and have warned of another food deficit in the country this year, saying a lack of inputs such as seed and fertiliser has undermined production in the last summer cropping season.

The GMB said early this month it was enlisting the help of the country's defence forces to collect grain in a bid to boost lagging deliveries.

It said Zimbabwe would continue to import maize, mainly from South Africa, to build up its strategic grain reserves.

On Thursday the official Herald newspaper said the central bank had released $10 million for urgent wheat imports to end bread shortages, partly caused by a row over prices.

The government this week ordered bakers to reverse a steep increase in the price of bread but most producers responded by halting production, citing high spiralling output costs. Some say they are forced to import their own wheat.

The country is battling a deep recession marked by world record inflation of 1,200 percent, unempolyment above 70 percent and shortages of foreign currency, fuel and food.

Zimbabwe has experienced food shortages since 2001 after being hit by drought and disruptions to agriculture blamed partly on the government's seizure of white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to landless blacks.

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