Once a Breadbasket,
Zimbabwe Today
Can't Feed Itself

Politics, Drought, AIDS Bring
A Severe Food Shortage;
Aid Is Coming Up Short
By ROGER THUROW
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL


PUPU, Zimbabwe -- There will be no traditional Christmas goat roasting on a spit here this year, and no Christmas chickens, either. The prospect of Christmas beer dried up long ago, along with the supplies of sorghum used for brewing.

The big holiday helpings of corn meal will be smaller than usual, for corn, the nation's staple food, is the scarcest commodity of all.

"We don't have enough food to really celebrate this year," says Luka Philip Ngwenya. "Christmas will just come and go like any other day."

For most people, that will mean a small ration of corn meal, supplemented with the roasted Mopani caterpillars and dried wild fruit that have helped keep villagers alive for the past couple of months.

Mr. Ngwenya, a 63-year-old peasant farmer, stretched out under a dying Msasa tree in one of the hungriest places in one of the hungriest countries in the world. He waited patiently, along with hundreds of his neighbors, for the monthly distribution of food from the U.N.'s World Food Program and the aid organization, World Vision.

On that day, 4,008 people were fed -- 70% of the local population. Throughout Zimbabwe, international humanitarian agencies are gearing up to feed more than six million people, which is more than half of the entire nation. That makes Zimbabwe, proportionally at least, the neediest recipient of food aid in the world.

The feeding of such multitudes is a surprising sight in a country that several years ago was selling up to 500,000 metric tons of surplus food to the WFP for distribution to starving people elsewhere. Now, it receives 500,000 tons of food aid. Zimbabwe today is home to many of the same factors, natural and man-made, that are propelling an increase in the number of hungry people world-wide -- even though more food is being produced than ever before.


A scorching drought has taken a toll here. But the situation has been exacerbated by politics. President Robert Mugabe, in the face of rising opposition, pushed a fast-track land reform that confiscated white-owned commercial farms and redistributed the property to loyal supporters of his Zanu-PF party. Many of the new owners were inexperienced in running large agribusinesses and food production has fallen dramatically.

In Christmases past, as recently as four or five years ago, when Zimbabwe was a breadbasket of Africa, this was a time of communal feasting and Christian celebration. But now, most families don't have enough for themselves, let alone for sharing. Rampant food shortages and an inflation rate soaring toward 700% have made goats and chickens too expensive to eat.

"Even if we have a chicken for a special meal, it is better to sell it for money to buy other food," says Lahlekile Mpofu, a skinny, elderly woman who opens up a ragged plastic bag to receive her ration of split peas.

She and others came to this distribution last week hoping there might be a Christmas present of a bit more food than usual. Instead, organizers announced they would actually be getting less, as the standard ration of corn meal was cut in half to 11 pounds. The pipeline of international food aid into the country is growing thin, the hungry were told, so corn-meal rations were reduced this month to make supplies stretch until the next harvest in April or May.

"What can we do? We have no choice," Mrs. Mpofu says with a shrug. "Half a loaf is better than none."

The drought is into its third year in some rural places such as Pupu. HIV/AIDS has stricken one-third of Zimbabwe's adults and is devastating the ranks of productive farm workers. So many people are dying that one of the few thriving industries is funerals. The county's largest funeral company announced last week that it would be opening five new parlors around the country, prompting speculation that it might even seek a listing on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange.

Today only a couple of hundred of the 4,500 confiscated farms are still fully functioning. Harvests of food staples plummeted by as much as 90%, livestock herds dwindled and production of the main cash crop, tobacco, slumped badly.

The resulting dearth of foreign currency has caused shortages of seed, fertilizer and fuel, which in turn have led to a drop in production on the peasant farms. Unemployment, which has soared to 70%, combines with the inflation rate to make whatever food is available too expensive for most of the population. A goat now costs as much as the equivalent of $200, which would nearly consume a teacher's monthly salary. Human-rights groups have charged that the ruling party has doled out food that is being produced locally in exchange for electoral support.


In October, the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch released a report documenting examples of residents being forced to display a Zanu-PF party membership card before being given some government grain. Those that didn't went hungry, the group says.

"Zimbabwe stands alone as how one person can ruin a country," says Tony Hall, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization and the WFP. Mr. Mugabe, he says, "has committed crimes against humanity."

Mr. Mugabe has dismissed such criticism, as well as the financial and travel sanctions imposed by the U.S. and Europe against him, as the actions of rich, white nations that don't want to see a black African country succeed. His government rarely issues visas to foreign correspondents, branding them agents of Western critics. Reporters who do slip into the country must report clandestinely and are unable to question government officials. In the past, Mr. Mugabe, who led Zimbabwe to independence in 1980, has blamed his troubles on former colonial master Britain for not supporting land reform earlier. Britain has said that Mr. Mugabe corrupted the process by rewarding the party faithful.

Addressing a party conference earlier this month, Mr. Mugabe defended his government's seizure of commercial farms for redistribution to black Zimbabweans. "Our people are overjoyed, the land is ours," he told his followers, according to local press reports of the conference. "We are now the rulers and owners of Zimbabwe."

January to April are the toughest months in Zimbabwe as food stocks from the previous spring's harvest are exhausted. During that period earlier this year, the international community fed seven million of Zimbabwe's 12 million people. Now, the numbers are inching up to that mark again, as hunger also takes hold among unemployed urban residents and the resettled farmers.

At the same time, the pipeline of food aid coming into the country is getting thinner. After two years of sending food to Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Ethiopia and other African nations, donor fatigue seems to be setting in. Humanitarian-aid agencies are finding donations aren't keeping pace with all the competing demands.

In Zimbabwe, the crisis has deteriorated rapidly. While neighboring countries such as Zambia and Malawi, which were also stricken by drought, have recovered as the weather has improved, Zimbabwe, with its political and economic turmoil, hasn't.

In December, the WFP had enough cereals, mainly corn meal, to meet only 49% of estimated requirements, which is why it went to half-rations. By March, given current donor pledges and scheduled shipments, it estimates it will be able to meet only 25% of cereal requirements and 19% of staples such as beans and peas. It takes about two months for food donations to be shipped to Zimbabwe, and at the moment, there is little scheduled to arrive in April. The WFP is trying to generate more donations of food or money for Zimbabwe. If it doesn't, rations will continue to get smaller to stretch out the food that is in the pipeline.

This puts the U.S. in the quandary of responding to a humanitarian crisis in a country led by a government it has stridently criticized, somewhat like the situation in North Korea. Even though the U.S. has pushed to isolate the Mugabe government, it has sent aid to the country. Since 2002, the U.S. has donated 437,000 metric tons of food to Zimbabwe.

One group that hasn't received much international aid so far are farmers on the resettled lands in Zimbabwe. International aid agencies say some large donors have been reluctant to have their money and food go to these farmers because the donors don't want to support Mr. Mugabe's land program. The government, in turn, hasn't cooperated with aid agencies seeking to do a needs survey on those lands.

The U.S. and the European Union, the two largest donors of food to Zimbabwe, say they are monitoring the situation there and will continue to respond to humanitarian need.

Next year's harvest may not offer much relief. Even if the weather cooperates, the corn production in Zimbabwe isn't expected to exceed this year's harvest of about 800,000 tons. Already, the international aid community in the U.S. and Europe is penciling in a 1 million-ton deficit for 2004.

In the western area of the country around Pupu, the outlook is bleak. The rains are late, seeds are scarce and many animals once used for plowing have died from a lack of food and water. The yield from last April's meager harvest began running out in August, forcing many people to survive on tea, wild fruit and the Mopani caterpillars, which in good times are eaten as a snack, not as sustenance. The WFP and World Vision, which fed this area during the lean months last year, returned again in November.

"If they didn't come back, people would be dying," says Siphatisiwe Ncube while waiting in line for food.

Field monitors of international aid agencies report scattered cases of desperate farmers eating their seeds rather than waiting for optimal planting conditions. Under the Msasa tree in Pupu, Mr. Ngwenya and a dozen other peasant farmers say they haven't resorted to that.

But are they tempted?

"Oh, yes," they shout in unison.

While the people waited patiently under a scorching noonday sun for their rations of corn, split peas and cooking oil, the village dogs bided their time too. When the last bag of food aid had been carried away, the dogs moved in to lick up any of the corn meal or peas that fell to the ground and escaped the brooms of the sweepers.

"This is really a sign of hunger," says Robinah Mulenga, a WFP official at the distribution as she watched two brown dogs lap up stray corn meal. "African dogs usually eat what is left over from the family meals. But now nothing is left over, so even the dogs are hungry."

Other signs of growing desperation noted by aid workers in the country: men leaving their drought-choked farms to pan for gold, women heading to the cities to work as prostitutes, young people sneaking across the border to find work in the neighboring countries, particularly South Africa.

On food distribution day, the parched soccer field of the Pupu primary school was covered with hundreds of bags filled with food from all over the world. From one of the goalposts hung a sign explaining the rations: 11 pounds of corn per person, 4 pounds of peas, and 3 pounds of the corn-soya blend.

Another banner posted at a corner of the field said: "Food provided to the people of Zimbabwe by WFP in collaboration with World Vision to restore hope, alleviate suffering and save lives."

"This is just about food. People must come in normal clothes, no political T-shirts," said Zvidzai Maburutse, World Vision's deputy director of relief in Zimbabwe. Last year, aid agencies suspended distributions in other parts of the country when local politicians tried to turn the handouts to their own benefit.

At this distribution, 35 tons of food was handed out without incident. Mrs. Ncube, barefoot and in a blue dress, walked two hours to collect her share, but she worries it won't be enough to feed a family of 11 for a month. As she waited her turn, she chewed on a small piece of dried wild fruit. "It gives you energy for several hours," she said.

What is her Christmas wish? "More corn meal, please," she says.

Write to Roger Thurow at roger.thurow@wsj.com

Updated December 24, 2003

SAD SAD SAD! A country that in the 70's had a dollar that was worth more than ours! To bad they don't have oil or a few terrorists, Bush would be there kicking Mugabe's sorry butt!