Zimbabwe: Food Assistance Needed to Stave Off Hunger Crisis, Officials Say

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/04/world/africa/zimbabwe-food-assistance-needed-to-stave-off-hunger-crisis-officials-say.html

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Zimbabwe’s Agriculture Ministry said Friday that it was importing 150,000 tons of corn, the nation’s staple food, from neighboring South Africa to avert a food crisis as millions face starvation. Deputy Agriculture Minister Davis Marapira said Friday that the government had so far received 300 tons, which will be distributed to the neediest parts of the country, state news media reported. The United Nations estimates that at least 2.2 million Zimbabweans will need food assistance before the next harvest in April. Zimbabwe managed to produce only 800,000 tons of corn last year. Annual consumption is 2.2 million tons. Before the chaotic and often violent seizures of thousands of white-owned farms in 2000, Zimbabwe was a self-sufficient regional breadbasket and a major exporter of corn.