UN agency says 2.2 million need food aid 03/09/2013 00:00:00 by Staff Reporter I Agencies No one will starve ... President Robert Mugabe RELATED STORIES ZIMBABWE faces its worst famine since 2009 with an estimated 2.2 million people living in the rural areas requiring urgent food assistance, a United Nations agency has said. "Hunger is on the rise in Zimbabwe with an estimated 2.2 million people - one in four of the rural population - expected to need food assistance during the pre-harvest period early next year," the Rome-based World Food Programme (WFP) said in a statement Tuesday. That is the highest number of Zimbabweans requiring food assistance since early 2009, when more than half the population relied on such aid. President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF party, who were declared overwhelming winners in a July 31 election rejected as a fraud by his main rival Morgan Tsvangirai, have promised food imports and said no Zimbabwean would die from hunger. Drought, the high cost of inputs such as fertilizer and grain prices that have risen 15 percent since last year are primarily to blame for the food shortages. “Many districts, particularly in the south, harvested very little and people are already trying to stretch out their dwindling food stocks,” said WFP Zimbabwe director Sory Ouane. “WFP is working closely with the Government and partners to respond to the looming food crisis and will start food and cash distributions to the most vulnerable in October. To meet the increased needs, WFP and its partners will provide regionally-procured cereals as well as imported vegetable oil and pulses. “Cash transfers will be used in selected areas to afford people flexibility and help support local markets. Distributions will be gradually scaled up from October until harvest time in March next year.” Zimbabwe has suffered intermittent food shortages since 2000 when agricultural output fell after President Robert Mugabe decided to seize white-owned commercial farms to distribute to blacks. Small-scale farmers’ inability to afford inputs such as chemicals and fertilizers has slowed agriculture’s recovery, WFP has said in previous statements.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Sep 2013 10:22:33 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015