Zim needs to import food

LINK
The WaPost links to an AlReuter's article, and has a dully written article saying the same thing as the previous post:

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe needs to import more grain to feed at least 2.2 million needy people who cannot fend for themselves until the new harvest next April, the official Herald newspaper reported on Wednesday....
"About 2.2 million people would require food assistance because they have no money to buy maize," Mhishi was quoted as saying.
"A total of 2.2 million people countrywide cannot afford to buy their own food...The government has to chip in and import 222,000 tonnes of maize so that no one starves," the Herald said.
In August the state grain marketing board said it planned to import 120,000 tonnes of maize every month and had bought 300,000 tonnes in the previous three months to stave off food shortages after poor rains.

Critics say the food shortages have been worsened by a collapse of commercial farming following a controversial land reform program that gave white-owned farms to landless blacks, many of whom lack skills or resources to fully work their plots....

Ah, but the problem is not giving land to those who traditionally worked it, and know how to farm and use irrigation etc. but because the dirty little secret is that Mugabe gave many farms to cronies and his backers...


Aid agencies say around four million people, a third of the population, will need food handouts until the next harvest from around next April. The government has said it will not formally ask the United Nations World Food Programme for help although it welcomes donations "without conditions attached."
Mhishi said Harare had not appealed for donor aid because "the number of households that needed such assistance did not warrant an international request for food aid," the Herald reported....