Villagers depend on dwindling supplies of food aid

Munsaka, at the end of a dusty and rutted road in Zambia's southern district of Kalomo used to be a farming village. Now the community depends on food aid from relief agencies, who are worried that their own supplies are fast running out. As the 4x4 carrying journalists and aid workers from CARE-Zambia pulled into Munsaka, scores of villagers approached the vehicle carrying empty bags of maize. "Have you brought us some food," asked Eunice Mweemba, holding a sickly looking child. "We want food and we need it now to save our families from dying of hunger." She told IRIN: "I have not eaten for three days just like several other people here. My children are suffering from malnutrition, I am weak and at this point I can eat anything that can save life." About 100 metres away, a young man crouched behind a pile of tubers which he was selling to hungry villagers who could afford it. "That is what we survive on around here," Mweemba said, pointing to the potato-like wild plant known locally as mantembe. "It is poisonous and can either save a life or take it away if you have not followed the instructions of preparing it safely." Mantembe is highly toxic and its preparation is convoluted. It has to be soaked for at least a week, boiled three or four times with a change of water, before it can be pounded into a tasteless porridge. Even then, if too much is consumed or short cuts are taken, the consequences could be dire. Half of the 177,000 people in Kalomo district, 400 km south of the capital Lusaka, are hungry and dependent on food aid. Of those, 35,000 are classified as vulnerable, including the elderly, disabled, single-parent families and households affected by HIV/AIDS. Throughout Zambia, 2.9 million people are in need of food aid as a result of two consecutive droughts, and the failure of the government's food security policies. CARE is trying to feed 500,000 people in five districts in the south and west of the country. In the southern provinces of Livingstone and Kasungula, a new round of food distributions were due to take place next week, aimed at 73,000 people. But at the moment, CARE has not received food supplies from the World Food Programme or the government, and does not know how much of its needs will be covered when the deliveries do arrive. "Unless there is guaranteed food supply for about one half of the badly affected people, the prevalence of malnourished children, the prevalence of malnutrition and food insecurity will increase over the coming two to three months. The consequences may be extreme hunger and associated health and disease effects," CARE's country director, Brenda Cupper, told IRIN. CARE has some 27,000 mt of genetically modified (GM) maize in storage in Kalomo, enough to feed up to 27,000 families for a month. However, the government has banned the distribution of GM maize as a precaution against possible health side-effects and fear of environmental contamination. However, some villagers in Munsaka pointed out they were already risking their lives by eating wild food like mantembe. "I don't see anything wrong with the GM maize," said Monga Beenzu, a subsistence farmer in his fifties. "We buried an elderly colleague of mine here just the other day because he did not have anything to eat. His legs got swollen, and he just gave up ... I used to take him food but when he needed the food the most, I didn't have enough food even for my own family. So the GM maize would do a lot if it was brought here." CARE is trying to source non-GM maize for distribution, alongside government and WFP efforts. "There's just not enough food to go around in the pipeline. If the promised [non-GM] maize comes in, it surely will help our work but then it takes between two to three months for this food to come in while these good people need the food now," Cupper said. CARE is also distributing seeds with a view to supporting next year's harvest. The package includes 5 kg of maize seed, legumes and fertiliser, alongside relief maize. But some farmers complained the assistance would not be enough. "From 5 kg, I am bound to only harvest about five bags of maize. That cannot take me anywhere. The other problem is the food we are receiving, the relief food, is not enough to give us enough energy to till the land. You need food to have strength to work," one villager said.