Food stocks significantly lower than govt predicted

The Zimbabwean government seriously miscalculated the size of its grain stocks, according to a recently released report by the parliamentary portfolio committee on lands and agriculture. The report, tabled in parliament on Wednesday, revealed that despite a predicted maize production of 2.4 million mt, as of 15 October the state-owned commodity buyer, the Grain Marketing Board (GMB), had received only 388,558 mt. The government had estimated that the four perennially drought-affected provinces of Masvingo, Midlands, Matabeleland North and Matabeleland South would produce 1.2 million mt of grain. However, only 28,465 mt has been made available to the GMB - just 2.3 percent of the forecast figure - the report said. The 12-member portfolio committee, which began its work in June to establish levels of food stocks in the country, received oral evidence from GMB officials, among them its chief executive officer, Samuel Muvuti, as well ministry of agriculture staff, including permanent secretary Pavelyn Masoka. The committee noted that it "failed to understand the huge gap between current deliveries to the GMB of 388,558 mt, and the national crop forecast of 2,400,000 mt of maize". The main harvest period is in March/April, when, under normal circumstances, farmers deliver their grain to the GMB, which has a legal monopoly on the purchase of maize and wheat. According to the report, GMB and agriculture ministry officials said the deficit was because between 45 percent and 75 percent of grain was still in the hands of farmers, who chose to withhold maize "for strategic reasons, as they were still [unsure] whether the coming season was promising to be good or not". The committee said it was "uncomfortable" with this explanation. "Should the assumption prove not to be strictly true, your committee is greatly concerned that this will plunge the country into a serious crisis, which will impact on the national economy and national food security". Farmers have reportedly been unwilling to sell to the GMB because of poor producer prices and the length of time taken by the commodity board to make payments. "For many of those farmers the primary concern is how to subsist on what they have harvested. They do not see themselves as charity workers who should just surrender to government their grain and wait for months before they get paid," said Wilson Kumbula, MP for the opposition ZANU-Ndonga, whose Chipinge South constituency in Manicaland faces serious food shortages. "The next planting season is close by, and these farmers need to have ready money to buy implements. As a result, they are tempted to sell their maize at lucrative prices on the black market," he added. Given the current rate at which grain is arriving at GMB depots, the parastatal would have received only 500,000 mt by the end of the year - well below national demand estimated at 158,000 mt of maize per month, said the report. In addition, millers are reported to have scaled down their operations because of low grain supplies from the GMB. This, analysts suggested, had adversely affected the availability of maize meal and flour in some areas. The government "was in the process of importing maize, with 141,521 mt of maize already purchased and paid for, though still yet to be delivered into the country - the government has signed contracts for the purchase of additional imports amounting to 222,554 mt", the committee was told. The parliamentary committee recommended that the "Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development immediately issue a revised crop production figure, based on actual yields, to enable the country to properly plan on the food situation". It also suggested that areas in dire need of food should be thoroughly assessed to find solutions to avert famine. In an informal survey, IRIN found that some rural communities were already feeling the effects of food shortages. In Chipinge South, villagers had resorted to wild fruits and their reserves of sweet potatoes. "There is acute hunger in Chipinge, since the rains were not good during the last planting season," Kumbula, the area's MP, told IRIN. "Even though some maize has been distributed to GMB depots, it is hardly enough. But, to make matters worse, the distribution of the grain [to beneficiaries] is being done through district administrators and traditional leaders, who are excluding people perceived to belong to the political opposition," he alleged. Kumbula added that some people were buying grain from the GMB at the subsided price of Zim $33,000 (US $6) per bag and selling it on the black market for double the official rate. Schools have also been affected by the food crisis, with one primary school IRIN visited having suffered a one-third dropout rate. A teacher, who refused to be named, said most of the affected children had to travel up to 13 km to attend class. "They [pupils] are finding it difficult to travel such long distances on empty stomachs. In any case, their parents are depending on them to gather wild fruit that they eat as an alternative to the traditional staple of maize and maize meal." The teacher said most of the villagers had resorted to harvesting a local fruit, known as 'mukwani', which is pounded into flour. Makena Walker of the World Food Programme (WFP) told IRIN that, at the request of the government, WFP was providing supplementary feeding to close to 400,000 beneficiaries, mainly rural school children and vulnerable social groups, such as people living with HIV/AIDS. Earlier this year the government decided not to renew an appeal for international food aid and controversially cancelled a crop assessment mission by the Food and Agriculture Organisation and WFP, claiming the country would have a bumper harvest. The then UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Zimbabwe, J Victor Angelo, warned in May that the UN was "concerned that, should a food assistance need be identified later in the year, and were the government to issue an appeal at that time, a very rapid response may not be possible".