Zimbabwe to run out of food February
It seems this new year 2020 will
be a very tough one for Zimbabwe.
According to the United Nations
World Food Programme, it will run out of its food aid for Zimbabwe by February
ending and this is very dangerous for the country as millions of Zimbabweans
are already battling hunger due to prolonged drought and economic crisis.
And with nearly eight million
people – half the population – now food insecure, WFP plans to double the
number of people it assists - up to 4.1 million - but needs over $200m for its
emergency response in the first half of 2020 alone.
“As things stand, we will run out
of food by end of February, coinciding with the peak of the hunger season when
needs are at their highest,” said Niels Balzer, WFP’s Deputy Country Director
in Zimbabwe. “A major relief operation is urgently required and firm pledges
are urgently needed as it can take up to three months for funding commitments
to become food on people’s tables,” Balzer added.
Years of drought have slashed
food production in Zimbabwe, once an African breadbasket. Last year’s maize
harvest was down 50 percent on 2018, with overall cereal output less than half
the national requirement. By August of 2019, WFP was forced to launch an
emergency lean season assistance programme to meet rising needs, months earlier
than anticipated.
Since then, food shortages have
become even more pronounced. Last month, maize, was only available in half of
the markets WFP monitors countrywide.
Worryingly, runaway inflation – a
symptom of the wide-ranging economic crisis Zimbabwe is experiencing – has
propelled the prices of basic commodities beyond the reach of all but the most
privileged. Amid dire shortage of foreign exchange and of local currency,
Zimbabwe has seen drastic price increases - bread now costs 20 times what it
cost six months ago, while the price of maize has nearly tripled over the same
period.
The deepening hardship is forcing
families to eat less, skip meals, take children out of school, sell off livestock
and fall into a vicious cycle of debt. There is little respite expected for the
most vulnerable, including subsistence farmers who grow most of Zimbabwe’s food
and depend on a single, increasingly erratic rainy season.
This season’s rains are again late
and inadequate, with planted seeds having failed to germinate in many areas.
Forecasts of continuing hot and dry weather in the weeks ahead signal another
poor harvest in April, putting lives and livelihoods at risk.
WFP’s operational scale-up is
challenging in many respects. Owing to the acute shortages of local currency
and rapid inflation, it entails a large-scale switch from cash-based assistance
to food distributions. WFP is uniquely positioned to make this switch in times
of crisis but can only do so with sustained donor support.
Because drought and flooding have
tightened the availability of food across much of Southern Africa, much of the
nearly 200,000 metric tons of food required to deliver assistance to the 4.1
million people targeted by WFP must be sourced beyond the continent, shipped to
neighbouring South Africa or Mozambique and moved by road into land-locked
Zimbabwe.
“While WFP now has the staff,
partners, trucking and logistics capacity in place for a major surge in
Zimbabwe, it’s essential that we receive the funding to be able to fully
deliver,” Balzer said. “The lives of so many depend on this.”
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