Rural households stretched to the limit

Ground down by the daily struggle to find enough food for their families, rural Zimbabweans have reached the limit of their coping skills, deepening their vulnerability to the current humanitarian crisis, aid workers told IRIN on Tuesday. "Many people have already exhausted their coping mechanisms. If food aid is not delivered in sufficient quantities, the possibility of them falling into starvation is very real," warned Chris McIvor, of Save the Children Fund (SCF). Vulnerability and nutrition assessments by SCF in the drought-prone northern Zambezi valley have indicated that levels of malnutrition are "relatively benign". But, McIvor noted, once people have sold all their assets, "the collapse can be very fast". Christian Aid reaches 120,000 school children with a meal-a-day in four provinces. It also runs a therapeutic feeding scheme for children aged under five in Manicaland. According to Christian Aid programme officer, Ed Watkiss, "the children's weights are plateauing. You won't see kwashiorkor ... but basically they are not getting enough food". "People in the rural areas say they are hungry and have no more mealie [maize] meal. When you look into their storage bins there is nothing, there are also longer queues at the GMB [Grain Marketing Board - the state run distribution outlets] depots. The need is big and is getting bigger," Watkiss said. A UN crop assessment earlier this year said maize output had fallen by 67 percent compared with 2001. Drought, which wiped out crops in most parts of the country, and the government's land-reform programme, both affected production. As a result, six million Zimbabweans will need 705,000 mt of food aid until the next harvest in March/April 2003. As the crisis persists, families have been forced to slash household budgets. This has typically involved cutting back on healthcare, pulling children out of school, and turning to "bush foods" rather than expensive and scarce commercial items. At the same time, livestock are being sold at progressively lower prices, due in part to a glut caused by the auction of cattle owned by commercial farmers who have been forced off the land, Watkiss said. Some households in border districts have been able to illegally sell their livestock for better prices in Botswana, South Africa and Mozambique. But most rural families have faced a general impoverishment. That has been reinforced by black market prices for food running at between two and three times the official rate, and casual labour opportunities disappearing with the departing commercial farmers. The deeper the decline, the harder it will be for communities to rebound next year. "There is no money to purchase seeds, even if the rains come. [SCF] will have to distribute seeds," McIvor said. Even the rains could be in doubt if a potential El Nino, a weather pattern causing climatic disruptions, develops as feared. "The big worry is that an El Nino could be building and lead to another unreliable rainy season. If that happens, next year will be a nightmare. In the past a proportion of Zimbabwe's agriculture was under irrigation by the commercial farmers. Next year, it will be all rain fed," Watkiss said.