Zimbabwe faced with a food deficit

President Robert Mugabe has indicated that Zimbabwe is faced with another food deficit this year after farmers experienced an acute shortage of fertilizer and unexpected heavy rains.

Speaking in Chipinge and Beitbridge during his 2008 Presidential campaign trail yesterday, the president said the government had already ordered 500 000 tonnes of maize to mitigate against possible hunger and starvation in the country.

He said prospects of a bumper harvest had been dampened by incessant rains which fell in most parts of the country in November, December and January.

The Zimbabwe government had dubbed the current agricultural season, 'The mother of all agricultural seasons' but the non availability of fertilizer and other inputs resulted in farmers failing to realize any meaningful harvests.

A crop assessment report by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) which was released yesterday, revealed that farmers had only received up to 10 percent of the required fertiliser during the current 2007/8 summer farming season.

The report also notes that producers also failed to meet the targeted cropping area of 2 million hectares for the staple maize grain mainly due to shortages of fuel, which along with electricity and foreign currency marked a devastating economic crisis gripping the country.

"The total expected production from this season may not meet the expected targets," said the report, compiled after a crop assessment exercise carried out from February 3-11.

"For this reason there is need to look into contingency plans for food imports," it said, adding that a final assessment would be conducted early next month.