Zimbabwe's food crisis will worsen this year because of a drought that has decimated maize and other key crops, a government minister said today.
Zimbabwe is struggling with an economic crisis marked by chronic shortages of food, fuel and foreign currency, the world's highest inflation at above 1,700 per cent, soaring unemployment and increasing poverty.
"The government has declared 2007 a drought year," the state-run Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) said, quoting Agriculture Minister Rugare Gumbo.
"The minister . . . told ZBC news that the dry spell experienced this season has badly impacted on agriculture, and crops, especially maize, in most parts of the country are a write-off," it added.
Once a leading agricultural exporter in southern Africa, Zimbabwe has relied on food imports since 2001, when President Robert Mugabe introduced up a controversial programme to seize white commercial farms and redistribute them to blacks.
Critics blame the farm seizures for a sharp decline in agricultural production in Zimbabwe.
The country's central bank governor, Gideon Gono, said earlier this month that Mr Mugabe's land reforms had contributed to acute food shortages.
The United States Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service has projected Zimbabwe's maize harvest at 850,000 tonnes this year, less than half the amount it needs to meet domestic consumption.
Tension is running high in the southern African country as Mr Mugabe's government intensifies a crackdown on political opponents and the economic crisis worsens.