Grain supplies running low in Zim

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a miller based in Harare said, “We collect our maize from the Grain Marketing Board depot at Murewa [a district 75 km northeast from the capital Harare] but there hasn’t been any maize there in the past few weeks. Our stocks are running out very quickly.”

He said the situation was the same at Harare’s main depot, Aspindale, where millers from the rest of the country collect their consignments.

In a recent report, The Herald, a government newspaper, revealed that the winter wheat harvest this year was half the size of last year’s, and that only 45,000 hectares instead of the projected 76,000 had been harvested.

In June this year, FEWS NET warned that Zimbabwe faced a shortfall of one million tonnes of maize, sorghum and millet – about 800,000 tonnes of it maize. It urged the government and donor community to mobilise for an immediate and coordinated response to address the growing levels of food shortages in the country.