WFP to cut Zim food rations

Geneva - The World Food Programme warned on Tuesday it would have to cut rations in Zimbabwe, where over five million people are expected to need food aid by January, due to a lack of funds from donors.

"We have so far received zero" for a $140m appeal launched in October, WFP spokesperson Emilia Casella told reporters.

And she warned that there was currently no food at all in the pipeline for Zimbabwe in January and February.

The WFP is planning to double its food aid deliveries to four million people in November, from two million in October, said Castella. By the new year, this was expected to top five million.

But she said: "We don't have enough food for these people.

"We will not be able to provide every beneficiary in November with a full food ration. We are being forced to cut the ration in Zimbabwe to people for whom this obviously couldn't come at a worse time," she added.

The WFP would be forced to cut its cereals ration to 10kg per person from 12, and pulses will drop to 1.0kg per person from 1.8kg, she said.

"We need additional donations urgently because it takes six to eight weeks from the time of a donation to transform a cash contribution into food on the table of people who need it in Zimbabwe," she said.

"The main problem for us in Zimbabwe is the funding," she added.

"We have the logistical capability, we do work well with the authorities on the ground, we are able to get to the people but we don't actually physically have the food to do it."

Once hailed as a model economy and a regional breadbasket, Zimbabwe's fortunes have nosedived since 2000 when President Robert Mugabe seized white-owned farms and handed them over to landless blacks.

Crop production was hit as the new owners often had no farming skills wrecking the economy and causing hyperinflation.

- AFP