IV. FOOD SECURITY IN 2004-2005

On May 12, 2004, the government announced that Zimbabwe does not require general food aid from the international community or food imports in 2004-5, as it has predicted a bumper harvest.¹⁴ The government has not, however, provided any information or data to support this prediction. Further, the government effectively “canceled” the FAO/WFP Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission (CFSAM) by recalling the government members of the mission from research in the provinces.¹⁵ This year’s actual crop yield is thus unknown.

In contrast to the government’s predictions, representatives of non-governmental organizations, U.N. agencies and donor countries have predicted that Zimbabwe will experience a food deficit in 2004-5.¹⁶ The partial findings of the CFSAM, released in July 2004, cover three provinces: Mashonaland West, Manicaland, and Matabeleland North. According to the CFSAM assessment, this year’s cereal production will be roughly 950,000 metric tons. After accounting for government and commercial imports and stocks, there is still a deficit of 325,000 metric tons. The CFSAM further predicts that 30-40% of farmers produced enough grain to last no more than three months. The Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZimVAC) predicts that 2.3 million rural Zimbabweans will require food assistance in 2004-5.¹⁷ An earlier study by ZimVAC also found that as many as 2.5 million Zimbabweans living in urban centers were food insecure in late 2003.¹⁸

In April and May 2004, Save the Children Fund-U.K. carried out household economy assessments (HEAs) in two of its operation areas: Binga and Nyaminyami (Kariba Rural) Districts, Matabeleland North and Mashonaland West Provinces. These districts, located in the Zambezi Valley, are traditionally poor areas with little access to social services. The HEAs found that “the most significant food security problem in these two districts is access to adequate food … Even if food is available on the market, around 50% of households (poor group) in Binga and Nyaminyami will not be able to purchase it as they will not have enough money or other means to do so.”¹⁹ Specifically, they found that the poorest 50% (poor group and social welfare cases²⁰) would require food aid for periods ranging from four to six months, in order to cover food deficits of 20% to 30%.²¹

The wide disparities between government and non-government crop assessments have led Zimbabwe’s Parliament to authorize the bi-partisan Portfolio Committee on Lands and Agriculture to probe and verify the government’s crop yield estimates. As of this writing, the Committee had apparently not begun its investigation; it was expected to begin in August, once the Parliament had resumed sitting.²²

[14] “Zim will not require food aid: Mangwana,” The Herald (Harare), May 12, 2004. The government predicted that Zimbabwe produced 2.4 million metric tons of maize. Zimbabwe requires 1.8 million metric tons of maize a year to meet human and livestock consumption needs. The government has requested that the WFP continue its targeted feeding program.

[15] In previous years, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the WFP, with the agreement and participation of the government of Zimbabwe, conducted a CFSAM, which is an established mechanism for informing the size and scope of food aid programs. As government officials facilitate access, the FAO and the WFP felt they had no option but to recall their team members as well. Human Rights Watch interview with U.N. representative, Harare, May 11, 2004. In a FAO report based on research conducted in three provinces before the team was withdrawn, the FAO predicted that Zimbabwe would have a cereal deficit of 325,000 metric tons. FAO, Special Report Zimbabwe, (Rome: FAO, July, 2004).

[16] Human Rights Watch interviews with representatives of NGOs and donor countries, Harare, May 12-18, 2004.

[17] Highlights of ZimVAC’s preliminary findings of its April 2004 Rural Vulnerability Assessment on file with Human Rights Watch.

[18] ZimVAC in collaboration with the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Food, Agriculture and Natural resources (FANR) Vulnerability Assessment Committee, Food Security and Vulnerability Assessment – September 2003. Urban Report No. 1, (Harare: ZimVAC, 2004), pp. 7-8. This number is unlikely to have changed, especially as the survey found that the main causes of food insecurity were high prices and inflation. Prices and inflation remain high, although inflation has fallen from over 600 percent in early 2004 to under 500 percent by June 2004.

[19] Email letter signed by Rakash Katal, SCF-UK Emergency Food Security Advisor, and distributed with Household Economy Assessments: Binga and Nyaminyami (Kariba Rural) Districts, Matabeleland North and Mashonaland West Provinces, Zimbabwe, (Harare: SCF-UK, May 2004). The letter was received by Human Rights Watch on June 11, 2004.

[20] SCF-UK researchers interviewed community leaders who helped the researchers to divide the communities into “wealth groups”/socio-economic groups. These divisions were confirmed during community interviews. The “social welfare” division is actually a sub-group of the “poor group.” The socio-economic divisions are based on a range of factors that affect that wealth of a household in a given community, such as livestock ownership, land area under cultivation, level of education attainable by children, and the availability, length, value, and sustainability of income sources. See: SCF-UK, May 2004, pp. 6, 14.

[21] Email letter signed by Rakash Katal, SCF-UK Emergency Food Security Advisor.

[22] “House Adopts Motion to Ascertain Country’s Grains,” The Herald (Harare), June 3, 2004; Charles Rukuni,“Food Security Controversy Rages On,” Financial Gazette (Harare), July 29, 2004.

<<previous | index | next>>

August 12, 2004