Zimbabwe's government plans to import another 200,000 tonnes of maize to stave off a famine that threatens millions in the country and other east African nations.
Agriculture minister Mr Joseph Made told the state newspaper The Heraldthat 400,000 tonnes of maize had already been imported and is being distributed to to stricken regions by the Grain Marketing Board (GMB).
The GMB were given a monopoly on buying and selling maize and wheat in Zimbabwe by the government last year. Rights groups and the opposition have accused the organisation of selectively distributing food to supporters of president Robert Mugabe.
The latest UN humanitarian report on Zimbabwe, published last week, said 5.5 million people in the population of 13 million face famine. Zimbabwe needs to import a total of 1.8 million tonnes of food to survive until the next harvest in 2003.
Zimbabwe's food shortages have been blamed in part on drought, and in part on Mugabe's tumultuous land reforms, in which more than 90 percent of white-owned commercial farms have been targetted for resettlement by blacks.
Under a new law, about 2,900 white-owned farms were supposed to stop working yesterday, but many farmers ignored the deadline, according to the Commercial Farmers Union which represents them.
The land reforms have hamstrung commercial farms since February 2000, when pro-Mugabe suporters turned the resettlement scheme into a violent campaign of farm invasions, closely tied to politically motivated attacks on opposition supporters.
AFP