HARARE: The Zimbabwean government is distributing its food stockpile and plans to import $700 million of grain to feed people and livestock after a drought damaged crops, including the dietary staple corn.
“Grain production was low in the country during the 2014-2015 season and we’re now using our strategic reserves to move food to the rural areas,” Agriculture Minister Joseph Made told parliament on Wednesday in the capital, Harare.
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The southern African nation, whose corn consumption is about 1.7 million metric tons annually, will probably need to buy more than 700,000 tons of the grain before the next harvest in March 2016, Made said on Tuesday. The government plans to partner with private millers for the purchases and it won’t immediately seek foreign help in boosting food supplies.
“We are not currently in a disaster situation,” Made said. “We don’t expect international aid at the moment.”
The country’s farming industry, including tobacco production, has been recovering from devastating land seizures from white commercial farmers that President Robert Mugabe’s government began in 2000.
The government will act promptly in the event of political interference in food distribution, Made said. Opposition parties over the past decade have accused the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front of diverting food supplies to its supporters during periods of drought.
