AT least 5.5 million Zimbabweans, more than half the country's population, need emergency food aid to avert starvation, according to the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) and Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

The UN agencies said about half of southern Africa's food deficit of 2.65 million tonnes was in Zimbabwe, which was previously said to have about 7.2 million people in need of humanitarian assistance.

In a statement issued in Harare yesterday, the agencies said food insecurity in southern Africa, and Zimbabwe in particular, remained serious despite an overall regional improvement in food distribution.

"Food production in Zimbabwe has fallen by more than 50 percent, measured against a five-year average, due mostly to the current social, economic and political situation and the effects of the drought," the UN agencies said.

"The situation was compounded by the marked reduction of the large-scale farm sector, which produced only about one-tenth of their 1990s output," the WFP and FAO said in their statement.

The UN organisations said about half of the regional food deficit of 2.65 million tonnes was in Zimbabwe because of the upheaval in the agricultural sector.

The UN agencies said the shortfall meant that Zimbabwe would need to import almost 1.3 million tonnes of food, either commercially or through food aid provided by donors, to meet the minimum food needs of the nation.

The WFP last week said it had reduced its food distribution from 4.7 million people who received food in March and April to about 1.5 million people in May and June due to crop harvests that were expected to last until September.

Figures of the region's food needs follow joint FAO/WFP crop and food supply assessment missions.

The missions brought together leading agricultural and food vulnerability specialists and included observers from governments, the Southern African Development Community, donor agencies and non-governmental organisations.

Their reports constitute the most objective and authoritative study of the crop and food supply situation in the region and will be used by donors and aid agencies to determine food and agricultural assistance requirements for 2004.

The UN agencies said other reasons for continued food aid assistance in the region, despite overall food availability, were household vulnerability caused by the HIV/AIDS pandemic and last year's severe food shortages, which forced many people to use their limited resources to survive.

The WFP/FAO examined the humanitarian assistance needs in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Zambia.

"As a whole, the region produced enough food to meet more than two-thirds of its food requirements, with the general food security situation improving regionally helped by the increased production in Zambia and Malawi," the organisations said.

"Production has however been uneven, with Zimbabwe producing barely enough to meet 40 percent of its needs."

Zimbabwe's food insecurity is primarily blamed on a controversial government land reform programme that has destabilised the agricultural sector and cut food production by more than half in the past year.

Under the land reform programme, the government has taken over most white-owned land to resettle black peasants and aspiring commercial farmers.

Most of those resettled under the programme, however, do not have adequate resources or technical skills to farm enough for sustenance or to boost the country's food reserves.

The instability caused by the resettlement exercise has combined with drought to leave thousands of households facing starvation.