More misery for Mugabe as drought looms

BULAWAYO - A huge food deficit is looming in Matabeleland region this year after a long dry spell scorched early-planted maize. Yesterday, the provincial leadership in Matabeleland South held a meeting in Gwanda and resolved to ask the government to declare the area a state of disaster.

The declaration would pave the way for the government and non-governmental organisations to expedite food aid deliveries to starving villagers in the arid region.

The World Food Programm (WFP), which is feeding hungry people in Masvingo province, will be winding up its programme in April. It is not clear whether it will be able to marshal enough resources to extend the programme and spread it to more affected areas around the country.

The drought in the Matebeleland region will pile more misery on President Mugabe’s almost bankrupt government, which has struggled to feed its people since he launched his ruinous land seizure campaign seven years ago.

Matabeleland South provincial administrator, David Mpofu, said there was widespread crop failure in his area, which means that most farmers may not realise any significant harvests this season.

He said the drought relief committee in his province unanimously passed a resolution to request the government to declare the province a state of disaster.

“We are facing a disaster in the province,” he said. “We must not delay moving with food to the people.  We have faced problems with people going hungry before, but this time, we want to be proactive.”

His province, like most south-western parts of the country, has not received any meaningful rains this season and the early planted maize crop has been written off while the late planted crop will most certainly not reach maturity owing to the mid-season drought despite the wet spell experienced last week.

Mpofu added that the provincial drought relief committee was drafting a report, detailing the scope of the disaster. Seven districts in the province - Matobo, Gwanda, Beitbridge, Insiza, Bulilima, Mangwe have drafted their own reports, which would be compiled into a consolidated provincial one.

Reports from other areas, such as southern Masvingo, Midlands and Manicaland and the entire Matabeleland North indicate that food shortages are looming because of the lack of rain.

In Matabeleland North province, the bulk of the maize crop has reached permanent wilting stage, especially in Tsholotsho, Umguza, Kusile, Hwange and Nyamandlovu districts.

Farmers’ only source of hope is the late-planted maize and small grains such
as sorghum, millet and rapoko.  Some yield can be obtained from the irrigation schemes in parts of the province.

However, sorghum has also succumbed to the searing heat in Tsholotsho, said
Dumisani Nyoni, Matabeleland North provincial head of the department of
Agricultural Research and Extension.

“Up to 70 percent of crops have reached permanent wilting stage because of the heat,” he said adding 10 percent of the sorghum in Tsholotsho has been written off.
Zimbabwe has grappled with food shortages since the land reforms, after President Mugabe seized productive farms from whites and parcelled them out to inexperienced and poorly resourced black farmers.

Independent analysts say food production has declined over the past six years by about 40 percent, partly because of the land reforms and recurrent droughts.
However, the government has previously denied the existence of food shortages.

Sometime during the 2005/2006 season the then Minister of Agriculture, Joseph Made said government expected a surplus above its annual cereal requirement of about 1.8 million metric tonnes of maize. But as it later turned out only 800 000 tonnes of the staple were harvested.

This necessitated the government to spend huge amounts of the scarce foreign currency to further augment food supplies to meet national requirements.