Grain stocks at critical levels - government

Levels of Zimbabwe's current grain stocks are critical, the government said on Wednesday, echoing recent warnings that the country was headed for famine if help didn't arrive soon.

Secretary for Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, Lancester Museka told IRIN: "The current situation is one of hand to mouth."

On Monday the World Food Programme (WFP) launched a US $507 million appeal to alleviate severe food shortages in Southern Africa. Shocking regional assessments have shown that of the estimated 12.8 million people in need in Southern Africa, 5.6 million people are in Zimbabwe. That is half the country's population. President Robert Mugabe has already declared a disaster.

A recent Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET) report said that: "Only two of the 57 districts of Zimbabwe are estimated to have less than 10,000 people requiring food aid." All but 13 of the remaining districts had more than 50,000 people desperately in need of food aid, and the worst affected districts were concentrated in the eastern and western parts of the country with more than 100,000 people in dire need.

Faced with a foreign currency crisis, being out of favour with the International Monetary Fund for not making repayments, and growing international hostility towards the current government, Zimbabwe is battling to cope.

However, with its limited resources the Zimbabwe government is trying to provide some form of assistance.

Museka explained that under a drought relief programme, the government was providing cash to 7.8 million people which enabled them to buy food from the Grain Marketing Board (GMB), which has a monopoly on grain. The first part of this strategy was to distribute Zim $500 (US $9 at the fixed rate or about US $1 at the parallel market rate) cash grants to the destitute, elderly, chronically ill and the disabled. The second part was to pay able-bodied people that amount for a maximum of five days' work per month on public works projects.

The projects include repairing soil erosion or broken bridges and a maximum of three people per household are allowed to participate in these programmes. The government could also give one person permission to do the work of another two people in the household, provided it did not exceed the 15 days' work allocated to that household. That way they can increase their earnings to Zim $1,500 per month.

All the names of beneficiaries are recorded in registers at each payment point and payments are carried out by the Rural District Councils each month. In the public works programme, paying teams go to each payment point.

Though there are no food distribution outlets in the programme, the GMB, under the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement, has grain selling points throughout the country for people to buy stocks.

"In some communities, villagers have pooled their resources to purchase and deliver maize grain to their villages," Museka said.

However, there have been concerns recently that the government might not have the foreign exchange to keep the GMB stocked and the government's price controls and GMB monopoly would discourage foreign imports.

"What's very worrying now is that not only are poor people suffering because they couldn't afford to buy food anyway, but you have another sector of the population who still could afford to buy food but there's nothing available so that just exacerbates and compounds the complexity," said Judith Lewis, WFP Regional Director.

When asked if Zim $500 was adequate, Museka told IRIN: "When you put it together it's billions. We're giving to 7.8 million people and when you compute it, it comes to a big amount. On a 50 kg bag of food the family can pull through."

It costs about Zim $1,000 to buy one bag of grain.

Museka said it was hoped that funds raised from Monday's appeal would help. The WFP said cereal import requirements for this coming year are 1.8 million mt, not far from the government estimate of 1.6 million mt.

However, experts said the drought was not the only factor in Zimbabwe's crisis. They have cited Zimbabwe's land reform policy, under which almost 3,000 white commercial farmers have been ordered to stop farming, as a disruption to commercial production.