By Staff writer
PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa has declared the 2023/24 summer cropping season a state of disaster.
He made the pronouncement at State house on Wednesday morning, saying over 2.7 million Zimbabweans are food insecure.
The President said the situation had been worsened by the poor rainfall the country received as a result of the El Nino.
“The current agricultural season of 2023/2024 has not performed according to expectations due to the El Nino induced droughts, as a result more than 80 percent of our country received below normal rainfall,” he said.
“The country had put a total of 1 728 897 hectares under maize crop and other cereals. Ordinarily this would have guaranteed a bountiful harvest for our country.”
President Mnangagwa further said that according to the Zimbabwe Livelihoods Assessment committee (ZIMVAC) report for 2023 approximately 2.7 million people were expected to be food insecure from April 2023 until March 2024.
The figure however, will most likely rise above the projected total as a result of the bad agricultural season that has befallen the country.
“While we have been able so far to fend for this food insecure population, the El Nino has compounded our current situation with food insecurity levels raised beyond the projected 2.7 million people,” added the President.
