Zim to run out of food next month

ZIMBABWE could run out of food as early as next month when the United Nations' humanitarian assistance programme ends unless alternative arrangements are quickly made.

In a UN Humanitarian Situation Report prepared after visiting Zimbabwe, UN special envoy James Morris said countries in the region urgently needed to establish new sources of food as the World Food Programme (WFP) "pipeline" would end in the next month.

This is likely to have serious consequences for Zimbabwe - already facing a grain deficit - as donors shy away and government fails to raise the foreign currency required for imports. Neighbouring countries like Zambia, Morris pointed out, were better situated because of advanced land preparation.

"The WFP pipeline is going to increase food imports from 40 000 tonnes in January to 50 000 tonnes in February and possibly 70/80 000 tonnes in March," Morris said.

"However, pledges to the WFP will last only up to end-March/ early-April, so new commitments are urgently needed."

The UN humanitarian assistance programme, which started last year, has managed to prevent widespread starvation in rural Zimbabwe, especially in Masvingo, Matabeleland North and South, parts of the Midlands and Mashonaland Central. While the WFP only managed to mobilise resources to purchase 160 000 tonnes of food for Zimbabwe against a target of 705 000 tonnes for a nine-month period up to March this year, what little it did collect has been evenly distributed and prevented a worst-case scenario.

But that now looms again as funding from traditional donors has slowed down as humanitarian assistance is now also required in North Korea and the Horn of Africa.

Zimbabwe's government has only managed to import a third of the country's needs due to foreign currency shortages, poor planning and logistical handicaps. Land seizures have prevented commercial production on the scale needed.

As of December, government had imported a paltry 685 784 tonnes of maize when the country requires 1,9 million tonnes to bridge the 2002/03 seasons.

The UN report, released this week, said the food situation in Zimbabwe was not likely to improve even after the start of the 2003 marketing season in the next two months.

"Government of Zimbabwe pro-jects an estimated maize production of 571 000 tonnes for the 2002/3 season of which only 56 000 tonnes is expected to flow to the Grain Marketing Board (GMB)," the report said.

"The estimates mean that the country will have a 1,09 million- tonne deficit for the 2003/4 marketing year."

Zimbabwe has an annual requirement of 1,9 million tonnes of maize to feed the close to 12 million population, about 62% of whom are understood to be in need of food aid as at the beginning of the year. The required tonnages do not include the 500 000 tonnes for the strategic grain reserve.

The WFP and its implementing partners plan to mill and distribute around 80 000 tonnes of maize by mid-March. A total of 35 000 tonnes of milled maize has benefited over 6,7 million hunger-stricken people through the country.

Around 7,2 million people have been surviving on food handouts either from the donor community or government since last year.

Next month is when the summer harvest starts.

The food relief requirement projections have been based on needs to tide Zimbabwe over until the 2003 summer harvest.

I have been saying since the beginning of planting season that the summer harvest would not take place.

This became apparent when the winter crop failed because of incompetence and the preparations for summer planting did not take place on the confiscated farms.

Why pray for a miracle? Let the stupid of Zim die of starvation. They deserve it for supporting Mugabe. Its not like they aren't aware of what is going on and what they are doing. They know food doesn't just drop down from the sky.

The "natural" population level of Zim prior to whites introducing modern famring and medicine was a couple of hundred thousand. Between AIDS and the farm confiscations, Mugabe is trying hard to return the country to that state.

This is analogous to Stalin's starvation of the Ukrainian farmers in the 30s. Drive all the farmers off their land, interrupt the natural rhythm of agricultural work, lose a harvest, and then blame the farmers for the famine.

This will end with Mugabe murdering millions of people and the world sitting on its hands, watching.

Give them the same treatment they gave the White Farmers and their families.
What's good for the "Goose is good for the Gander".
Let Koffi Anan and Mandela (the Mouth) Feed them, they hate the whites so much they wouldn't take food from them.

The problem is that the ones who gave the treatment to the white farmers are not the ones who will go hungry. They are the party cadre who have been diverting WFP famine relief.

The ones who will go hungry will first be those who opposed Mugabe and their families, second the Europeans as they make such nice scapegoats, third the Ndebele and fourth the Indian and Asian merchant class.

Or perhaps the Ndebele will be ahead of the Europeans to suffer as the numbers of the Europeans have dwindled to the point where they don't make very credible scapegoats any more and the Europeans are more likely to have external resources.

The Party cadre will be the first in line for food and the leftovers will go to the Shona majority.

I truly understand that and my interest is that the Bloated well fed Bureaucrats at the U.N. should have done something about this meglomaniac Mugabe at least 3 years ago. They do Nothing, and clowns like Anaan and Mandela parade around like the peacock on TV making "profound pronouncements"
while the disenfranchised starve. It's all very sad. This situation repeats itself endlessly around the globe.
When we donated tons of Money to Russia it was stolen by the "Elite" and put in private accounts.
When nuts like Mugabe allow the food in they take the LIONS SHARE and let their own people starve.
Sad!!

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