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FEWS Zimbabwe Food Security Warning - Low cereal production, inflation limit food access
Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNET)
May 30, 2007

This report covers the period from April 25 - May 30 2007

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/SBOI-753T2Y?OpenDocument&rc=1&cc=zwe

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There is a general consensus that the 2006/07 harvest will be much below the recent average due to poor seasonal rainfall in the south, poor availability of and access to critical inputs such as fertilizers, maize seeds, fuel, electricity, labor and draft power. The Ministry of Agriculture conducted a national multi-stakeholder crop assessment in March 2007 to estimate the cereal harvest for the year. This assessment, which did not include urban agriculture, came up with a total estimate of about 740,000 MT for maize, sorghum and millets. Following the assessment, the Government of Zimbabwe (GoZ) declared the drought a disaster and subsequently invited the joint FAO and WFP Crop and Food Supply Assessment mission to verify the 2006/07 crop production. After its in-country consultations and field work, the mission indicated that they will be revising the government's cereal harvest estimates upwards slightly because of improvements in crop performance prospects brought about by better than expected rainfall amounts and distribution towards the end of the 2006/07 rainfall season.

Taking the government's initial cereal estimate as the worst-case scenario, Zimbabwe faces a shortfall of maize, sorghum and millets of at most 1,200,000 MT in the 2007/08 consumption year. In this estimate, the country cereal requirements are based on a population estimate of 11.83 million by the Central Statistical Office (CSO) of Zimbabwe and an annual per capita consumption requirement of 133 kg combined with animal and industrial consumption and losses of 350,000MT. Taking into consideration about 153,000 MT of carry-over maize in GMB storage, the initial deficit is reduced to not more than 1,050,000 MT. With limited foreign exchange available, Zimbabwe will need to import a significant amount of maize to meet its domestic requirements. Malawi, which had a record surplus this year, is arranging export up to 400,000 MT to Zimbabwe this year, and almost 50,000 MT have already been shipped since the marketing period began. If Malawi's maize is delivered, Zimbabwe would still need to source an additional 600,000 MT of cereals to cover the gap. While not impossible, allocating the foreign exchange to meet these requirements would not come without heavy socio-economic costs to the public.

The availability of staple cereals in the form of both grain and maize meal was generally stable in most parts of the country during April and May 2007. Major sources of the grain consumed in this period were the 2006/07 harvest, GMB supplies, private millers and stocks from food aid distributions that stopped in March 2007 for most parts of the country. However the ever-increasing cost of living continues to limit access to basic food stuffs by households in both urban and rural areas of Zimbabwe. The annual rate of inflation measured by the Central Statistical Office (CSO) increased by the highest margin on record of 1,513.7 percentage points to reach 3,713.9 percent in the month of April.

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