Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) Zimbabwe is to import 200,000 metric tonnes of the staple maize food from Tanzania to avert widespread food shortages following a poor harvest, Zimbabwe TV, monitored here Thursday, has reported.
“We will have maize coming in shortly from Tanzania,” Samuel Muvuti, head of Zimbabwe’s state-run Grain Marketing Board, said in Harare.
“As soon as everything is put in place, stocks should be arriving into the country through the (Mozambican) port of Beira, to cater for the southern part of the country,” Muvuti added.
The Tanzanian government, however, said it was not aware of this maize sale to Zimbabwe.
The Zimbabwe TV report also said efforts were underway to bring in another 400,000 metric tonnes of maize from Malawi.
In fact, according to an APA correspondent in Malawi, the process of transporting Malawi maize to Zimbabwe began in June.
So far the Malawians have trucked in nearly 100,000 metric tonnes of the staple to Zimbabwe, Malawi’s Deputy Agriculture Minister Binton Kuntsaira told APA on Thursday.
Last month, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) said in a joint report that more than four million Zimbabweans - a third of the population - were in need of food aid.
In March Zimbabwe, once a regional breadbasket, declared that its 2006/07 farming season was hit by drought, meaning that the government would need to import hundreds of thousands of tonnes of maize.
Apart from the drought, President Robert Mugabe blamed the perennial food shortfall on Western sanctions imposed on him and his ruling party elite.
This followed the last presidential polls, which the opposition and Western observers alleged were rigged to hand Mugabe victory.
But Western critics say the situation is a direct result of the controversial land reforms in which the government seized at least 4,000 farms from white commercial farmers for reallocation to landless blacks.
“We will have maize coming in shortly from Tanzania,” Samuel Muvuti, head of Zimbabwe’s state-run Grain Marketing Board, said in Harare.
“As soon as everything is put in place, stocks should be arriving into the country through the (Mozambican) port of Beira, to cater for the southern part of the country,” Muvuti added.
The Tanzanian government, however, said it was not aware of this maize sale to Zimbabwe.
The Zimbabwe TV report also said efforts were underway to bring in another 400,000 metric tonnes of maize from Malawi.
In fact, according to an APA correspondent in Malawi, the process of transporting Malawi maize to Zimbabwe began in June.
So far the Malawians have trucked in nearly 100,000 metric tonnes of the staple to Zimbabwe, Malawi’s Deputy Agriculture Minister Binton Kuntsaira told APA on Thursday.
Last month, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) said in a joint report that more than four million Zimbabweans - a third of the population - were in need of food aid.
In March Zimbabwe, once a regional breadbasket, declared that its 2006/07 farming season was hit by drought, meaning that the government would need to import hundreds of thousands of tonnes of maize.
Apart from the drought, President Robert Mugabe blamed the perennial food shortfall on Western sanctions imposed on him and his ruling party elite.
This followed the last presidential polls, which the opposition and Western observers alleged were rigged to hand Mugabe victory.
But Western critics say the situation is a direct result of the controversial land reforms in which the government seized at least 4,000 farms from white commercial farmers for reallocation to landless blacks.
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