via US agency warns of bad harvests – NewZimbabwe 02 April 2015
PARTS of Zimbabwe are expected to reap one of their worst harvests in five years because of poor rains, the US-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET) said last week.
Households in some areas of Matabeleland North, Midlands and Manicaland provinces are already finding it hard to buy basics like sugar and tea, FEWSNET said in its latest update.
Prices for maize grain went up 45% in the south of Zimbabwe between February and March because of low market supply.
Food shortages have been less acute in Zimbabwe in the last few years, following repeated shortages linked to drought and a controversial land reform programme launched by President Robert Mugabe in 2000.
“Prolonged dry spells and erratic seasonal rainfall in the southern parts of the country, including Matebeleland North, and parts of Midlands and Manicaland Provinces resulted in severe crop wilting and loss,” said the report.
“The main harvest in these areas is expected to be one of the worst in the past five years,” it added.
Vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa promised last month that Zimbabwe would import grain and said that no-one would starve.
News of the crop failures comes as Zimbabwe slips back into economic crisis, with mounting job losses and company shutdowns.
COMMENTS
Any farmer which “acquired” a farm in 2000 cannot give erratic rains as an excuse because most “acquired” farms had dams and pumps and centre pivot irrigation and irrigation pipes etc etc so we should have had a bumper harvest this year.
Furthermore, if any “acquired” farms do not have irrigation today …. what was the US$ 1,4 BILLION (racked up under by the Farm Mechanisation Scheme) get spent on?
ZAMBIA plans to sell as much as a third of its record corn crop to regional countries including Zimbabwe. The country will sell as much as 1 million metric tons of its white-corn surplus, Agriculture Minister Given Lubinda said. The government has set aside about almost one-third of its record 3.2 million-ton 2014 crop to sell locally and to neighbours, he said.
Why is Zambia doing so well?
What Zimbabwe needs is White farmers, they are really good at growing a surplus
I celebrate any suffering that the new farmers experience. It is payback.
Grabmore th answer to your question is simple but not many politicians in Zim want to hear that…the same guys who were farming in Zimbabwe are the ones farming in Zambia. I am sure that answers your question, ”Why is Zambia doing so well?”
the areas mentioned above are cattle raising areas not grain they are semi arid areas by nature like trying to grow stawberries in plumtree(without irragation ) DREAM ON