Zimbabwe food aid cutbacks heighten starvation risk
Zimbabwe's farming sector is in ruins
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Wednesday, 12, Nov 2008 11:05
The World Food Programme (WFP) has made cutbacks to its feeding programmes to hunger-stricken Zimbabwe due to lack of funds, putting half of its population at risk of starvation.
The UN food aid agency said its $140 million (£91.6 million) appeal to help feed starving Zimbabweans had received no funding.
"We have received none of the funding, zero. There is currently no food in the pipeline for distribution in January and February – just when the crisis is reaching its peak," it said in a statement said in a statement.
"We need the funding urgently," WFP spokesperson Emilia Casella added.
The agency said its humanitarian assistance covered two million people in October and this was expected to double this month before hitting the 5.1 million mark – almost half the population – by early 2009.
Zimbabwe faces the worst food crisis in years with villagers now being forced to survive on wild fruits, tree leaves and roots. Scores of villagers have since died after eating toxic wild fruits.
International food monitoring agencies say over three million people face starvation and estimate that the figure will more than double before next year's harvests.
Analysts say the current food shortages, in their eighth year in succession, is clear testimony of the ill effects of president Robert Mugabe's chaotic land reform programme of 2000 that turned the nation from being Africa's breadbasket to a basket case.
Agricultural production plummeted after landless blacks took over prime farming land from white commercial farmers at the turn of the millennium since they had no framing expertise.
Since then, the nation has survived on food imports and food handouts from food aid agencies.
President Mugabe has defended the land reform programme, saying it was necessary to right the wrongs of the colonial past.
Mr Mugabe blames food shortages on droughts while experts cite poor planning on the part of government ahead of each farming season.