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Africa Moyo, recently in Mutoko
Mutoko District – like several other parts of the country – is in need of food assistance after 80 percent of crops were written-off due to moisture stress.
According to the 2012 population census, Mutoko has 146 127 people.
Orphans and the elderly are getting food aid from the Department of Social Welfare and thousands of others are thronging the district administrator’s office for registration to get assistance.
Villagers who spoke to The Sunday Mail Extra last week appealed for Government’s intervention, saying many families were already going without sadza.
“We are pleading with Government to swiftly intervene and save us from hunger, we need maize meal and cooking oil. Many families are already going without food after a poor harvest last season and as it stands, there is virtually nothing that we are expecting from our maize crop after a prolonged dry spell and some people are surviving on bupwe (a type of okra),” said Mrs Millicent Joko (70) of Mbudzi A’s ward 13. Mutoko assistant district administrator Mr Nelson Takura said: “About 80 percent of the crop in the fields is now a write-off. We sent reports to the (provincial administrator’s) office in Marondera and we have since indicated to them that we now have many people registering for food aid.
“We also have assistance from the Department of Social Welfare, which is feeding people that registered with them a long time ago, mainly orphans and the elderly.
“However, many people now qualify as vulnerable people because of the heat that affected their crops although there is a stage when everyone will join the food assistance programme, most likely in May or June when their harvests from last year would have run out.”
Government and the private sector are sourcing grain from around the world to avert food shortages, and the African Export-Import Bank recently secured US$200 million to fund maize imports.
About one million tonnes is required to feed food-deficient districts around Zimbabwe.
Last week, Government said the Grain Marketing Board would reduce maize prices from US$23 to US$15 per 50kg bag when selling to individuals. The price for commercial buyers is unchanged.
The country has a three-month supply of the staple maize and imports are expected to dock before existing stocks dwindle.
Mutoko is also in the grip of water shortages and Mr Takura said people had been ordered to stop watering their crops to reserve what is available for livestock – a directive that has hit the district’s famed tomato farmers the hardest.
A Mutoko district situation report dated January 20, 2016 seen shows that rains first fell in October 2015 and the “next effective rains were received on December 18, 2015”.
Online Reporter