Zambia gives 10,000 tonnes of maize to feed hungry

Thu Jul 26, 2007 5:43am EDT

LUSAKA, July 26 (Reuters) - Zambia, a former recipient of food aid, has given the U.N World Food Programme (WFP) 10,000 tonnes of white maize to feed orphans and people living with AIDS, a senior aid official said on Thursday.

WFP country manager for Zambia, David Stevenson, said the government donation would be used to help feed hungry people in Zambia where the aid agency requires an additional $10 million to feed Zambians affected by floods in the last rainy season.

"It is the first time Zambia has done so (donating food) and it's a tremendous gesture in many ways that shows we are collaborating well with Zambia in meeting the needs of hungry people," Stevenson said.

He added assessments were underway in Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Malawi and Swaziland on food requirements, and part of the Zambian donation could go to help feed hungry people elsewhere in Africa.

"The priority for distributing this food will be within Zambia because we have 600,000 people requiring food aid while the donation can only feed 550,000 people for three months," Stevenson told Reuters.

Officials say thousands of Zambians and Malawians still face food shortages despite maize surpluses in the two nations in the 2006/07 season.

In June, Zambian Agriculture Minister Ben Kapita said the country's 2006/07 maize output declined 4.4 percent to 1.36 million tonnes compared with output for 2005/06 due to floods which destroyed the crop in 41 of the country's 72 districts.

Kapita said Zambia would keep 250,000 tonnes of maize in strategic reserves in addition to the surplus of 160,000 tonnes the previous year.

The government last week authorised traders to export 200,000 tonnes of maize to Namibia and the democratic Republic of Congo.

In Zambia, where one in every five adults aged 14 to 49 years either lives with AIDS or is infected with HIV, people especially in rural areas are unable to feed themselves because they either spend too much time nursing relatives suffering from AIDS or are too sick to grow their own food, officials say.




Comments (0)
This discussion is now closed. We welcome comments on our articles for a limited period after their publication.