HARARE Four of Zimbabwes 10 provinces face food shortages this year with poor households in the affected areas expected to harvest food enough to last only about two months, according to the Famine Early Warning System and Network (FEWSNET).The US-funded early warning system on Tuesday said a prolonged dry spell from February to March destroyed crops in Masvingo, Manicaland, Matabeleland South and Midlands provinces, adding food shortages in the hunger-prone provinces was expected to set in earlier than normal.
“The lean season is likely to set in earlier than usual in these areas in the 2011/12 consumption year as the dry spell significantly reduced the potential contribution of own household production to household consumption and income,” the FEWSNET said in a report.
“The poor households in the affected areas are currently dependent upon food aid, most of which stopped in March leaving these households to depend on their meager harvests that are likely to last for up to two months,” it said.
However the report said staple cereals and other basic food stuffs continue to be generally available in other parts of the country outside the four drought-hit provinces, adding that food availability in such areas would receive a boost from this seasons crop currently being harvested.
But the report also said that despite general stable food supplies and a relatively stable macroeconomic environment, poverty levels remain relatively high in Zimbabwe, with low incomes amid high levels of both unemployment and underemployment that continue to constrain the ability of poor households to access adequate food.
The southern African country, which was once a breadbasket of the region, has since 2001 experienced acute food shortages chiefly blamed on President Robert Mugabes chaotic and often violent drive to seize land from experienced white farmers for redistribution to blacks.
The farm seizures saw farm production tumbling by more than 60 percent after Mugabe failed to provide funding, inputs and skills training to black villagers resettled on former white farms to maintain production.
But agriculture has shown signs of recovery with maize production rising to 1.5 million tonnes in the 2009/10 season up from about 1.2 million tones in the 2008/09 season.
However the FEWSNET estimates maize production this year to remain stagnant at 1.5 million tonnes, which is 500 000 tonnes short of the about two million tonnes Zimbabwe requires for consumption per year.
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