Bloomberg — Maize production in Zimbabwe will fall by nearly three-quarters this year as the country faces its worst drought in four decades, according to the government.
Production of the staple grain in the 2023-24 season, which ends May 31, is estimated at 634,699 tonnes, a 72% drop from the previous year, according to a final harvest assessment seen by Bloomberg News and confirmed by the Ministry of Agriculture. This compares with a previous forecast of 868,237 tonnes.
“Statistically, the season had the latest and driest start to a summer in 40 years,” the government said in its Crops, Livestock and Fisheries Round Two Assessment Report.
Read more: Corn and soybean meal reach peaks of the year with floods in Rio Grande do Sul
The climate phenomenon El Niño triggered a drought in southern Africa that reduced South Africa’s maize harvest by at least a fifth and led countries such as Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe to declare states of national catastrophe due to crop failures.
Zimbabwe’s grain mills plan to import at least 1.4 million tonnes of maize by July to resolve the shortfall.
Zimbabwean farmers planted 1.78 million hectares of maize this season, a 7% reduction from the projected area and 12% less than the amount planted last year, according to the report. The decline reflected “agroecological adaptations and a shift to traditional grains in drier regions.”
Zimbabwe consumes 2.2 million tonnes of maize annually, with 1.8 million tonnes used for food and 400,000 tonnes for animal feed.
The report warned that the continued disruption of global food, fuel and fertilizer supply chains; and geopolitical developments, particularly in large input and crop supply regions, “increase the need and urgency for Zimbabwe to achieve sovereignty in seeds, food, feed, fiber, oils and biofuels”.
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Tags: Deepest drought decades southern Africa cuts maize production
