President Emmerson Mnangagwa says Zimbabwe’s food security is guaranteed despite the grain harvest falling to 1.8 million tonnes in the 2021/22 summer season.
Writing in his column for The Sunday Mail, President Mnangagwa said the country is set to hold more than 100 000 tonnes of grain carried over from last season’s harvest. He said:
The just-ended 2021-22 season has not been that good. It was slow to start and characterised by poor and erratic rains.
As if that was not bad enough, the country was hit by a severe early-to-mid-season drought which subjected most crops to severe moisture stress.
As I indicated, five provinces (Manicaland, Masvingo, Bulawayo, Matabeleland North and South) were hit hardest and could not recover.
Because of that, our harvest has come down to 1.8 million tonnes, 400 000 tonnes short of our yearly national requirement of 2.2 million tonnes.
Thankfully, our Strategic Grain Reserves, SGR, hold 500 000 tonnes from the 2020-21 season.
That means we exceed our yearly national grain needs by some 100 000 tonnes, which we expect to remain in SGR until the next harvest.
We thus are food secure.