SADC to act on expected food shortages

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit has directed its agricultural ministers to meet as soon as possible to examine the region’s food security and to develop a regional response to pending shortages. Saying that the region’s food security was greatly influenced by weather conditions, civil strife and national policies, the summit projected a combined all-cereals deficit of 3.87 million mt for the 2001/2002 marketing year, compared to a small surplus of 583,000 mt for the previous year. According to a communique released on Tuesday in the Malawi commercial capital, Blantyre, SADC said it expected a regional maize deficit of about 2.1 million mt, with South Africa and Mozambique being the only two countries recording a surplus - 180,000 mt and 7,000 mt respectively. “All other SADC countries are anticipated to face maize deficits or import requirements of varying degrees, which, however, cannot be satisfied from the available surpluses in South Africa and Mozambique. The need for humanitarian assistance in Angola persists due to the internal situation in that country,” the communique said. South African President Thabo Mbeki was quoted as saying after the summit that the region would need outside assistance to avert a serious crisis. The communique said that Zambia had already appealed for assistance to feed about two million people, following a 39 percent drop in maize production. “Maize shortfalls are also projected for Lesotho, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. Summit noted that most of the remaining SADC countries have/or are planning to put in place contingency measures to deal with the unexpected food insecurity,” it added. According to SADC, in countries like Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe, the assessed deficits were likely to be covered through increased commercial imports with little or no donor aid. In Zimbabwe, however, where official estimates indicate a maize deficit of between 150,000 and 200,000 mt for the 2001/2002 consumption year, the situation could deteriorate in the face of ongoing commercial farm invasions. The government only recently acknowledged publicly that it would face a maize deficit, while government and aid workers are wary about discussing the crisis. “The food security situation is more being used for political ends - whether to admit a shortage or not has become a political decision,” a senior aid official told IRIN. “People don’t feel comfortable any more to talk about whether there is a food shortage because it is politically interpreted.” Other analysts and aid officials contacted by IRIN said they feared government reprisals if they said the “wrong” thing. “If you say there is a food shortage then the government thinks you are playing into the hands of its critics and perpetuating the idea that farm invasions are responsible for the pending shortage. Yet if we say there will be no shortage, we would be lying ... so it’s better to wait and see what happens,” one official said. USAID’s Famine Early Warning System (FEWS) said in its latest monthly food security update on Zimbabwe that the government and private sector needed to import about 30,000 mt of wheat, which had increased three-fold in price in the past year, before the next harvest in October 2001. Regarding maize, FEWS said that without imports, the country’s available maize was expected, at normal national consumption rates, to run out by mid-February 2002. In its latest update on food security in the region, published on 30 July, FEWS said southern Africa’s maize production was at its lowest in six years and that Zimbabwe was planning to import about 544,000 mt of maize. While the country needs to import a maximum of 200,000 mt of maize to feed its population, it would have to import about three times this amount if it wants to maintain its strategic reserves as well. Zimbabwe has outlawed private maize sales, preferring all stocks to be sold to the parastatal Grain Marketing Board (GMB). However, the board’s stocks have been rising very slowly, partly because big and small farmers have been unhappy with the price they are being offered, analysts said.