CRITICAL food shortages, caused mainly by government's controversial land reform programme last year and this year's poor rainfall season, have gripped most parts of the country, forcing thousands of villagers to turn to gold panning to avert mass starvation.

Zimbabwe's alluvial gold-rich rivers are now home to thousands of distraught villagers lured into the bowels of the earth in search of the precious stone which they exchange for cash to buy food for their starving families back home.

Though illegal, gold panning appears to have been condoned by the authorities, especially given its spread within the communal and resettlement areas. On a good day, a gold panner takes home $6 000 or more, if he makes a lucky strike.

Each gramme fetches up to $2 000, rendering gold panning lucrative.

Quite oblivious to the inherent risks associated with gold panning ­ police raids, mine shaft collapses, environmental degradation and mercury poisoning, gold panners continue to rape the natural environment without due knowledge of the consequences of their actions.

All they are concerned with is feeding their families, they say. "It is better that my family survives than for a tree on top of my gold claim," said Maxwell Ruzande, from Chachacha in Shurugwi.

Zimbabwe urgently needs at least $24,8 billion to feed an estimated 2,5 million people in dire need of food.

The Commercial Farmers' Union says the country has a shortfall of about 1,8 million tonnes in maize-meal and other cereals.

Recently, government officials held emergency meetings with representatives of various donor agencies including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), World Food Programme, the United Nations Food and Agriculture

Organisation (FAO) in an effort to drum up international support for food, with little success.

Victor Angelo, the resident UNDP co-ordinator in Harare, said: "We need funding to provide aid at least until the end of April 2003."

Although the sanctions recently imposed by the European Union, the United States and Switzerland did not affect humanitarian assistance as they were centred mainly on travel bans and freezing of assets of the Zanu PF leadership, the response from the country's traditional donors has been, at best, lukewarm.

Zimbabwe's failure to uphold the rule of law, human rights and its policy of seizing productive farmland has angered donors, forcing many to cut or suspend aid.

The situation has been compounded by the outcome of the recently-held presidential poll won in controversial circumstances by President Mugabe. The opposition MDC and most of the world described as being neither free nor fair.

The head of the WFP in Zimbabwe, Pierre Saillez, said out of the US$60 million (Z$3,3 billion) the agency required to provide food aid, it has only received about US$20 million (Z$1,1 billion), mainly from the US and Britain.

As government agencies talk-shop and shuttle around their magnificentoffices in Harare searching for a lasting solution to the food shortage, the hungry panner is driven into the bowels of the earth in order to provide for his starving family.

He pants with each exertion as he swings his pick-axe on the hard earth, while totally submerged in the seven-metre hole that he has been digging for gold.

Around him, the ground is littered with holes and tunnels. It represents an intricate honeycomb.

In Mashonaland and the Midlands provinces, an average of 200 people are crushed to death each year as the fragile sand mine shafts collapse.

The search for gold has reached high levels and gold dealers are always on standby to buy the precious stone for resale to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, at premium rates.

However, some of it ends up in foreign markets as the government has no proper mechanisms to control the blackmarket trade.

Several gold-rich rivers in Mashonaland Central, Mashonaland West, the Midlands, Matebeleland North, Masvingo and Manicaland provinces are now heavily silted as a result of rampant panning by hungry villagers.

In the Midlands province, disused mine shafts in Kwekwe, Lower Gweru and Shurugwi have become death traps where about 30 gold panners have perished so far this year.

The Muzvezve and Munyati rivers in Mashonaland West have literary been defaced by the panners' unrelenting shovels. In Masvingo province, the once scenic vegetation of the vast Runde, Tokwe,Chiredzi and Mwenezi rivers now lie devastated and scattered.

The Save and Mutirikwi rivers are a pale shadow of their former selves because of excessive siltation caused by gold panning. Panners, if left uncontrolled, may soon invade the urban centres.

Already, they have encroached on parts of Harare, Bulawayo, Masvingo, Kadoma and Kwekwe. Although the government has recently stepped up surveillance on illegal mining activities in the affected areas in an effort to plug foreign currency leaks and stem the tide, gold panning will continue to exist as long as there are food shortages.

Two months ago, the government made moves to legalise activities of gold panners by encouraging them to form co-operatives so that they would be integrated into mainstream economy.

It, however, remains to be seen whether the government's effort will help preserve the environment while contending with the panners' quest for survival.