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Southern Africa: Famine Looms As Region is Hit By Floods
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The Nation (Nairobi)
24 January 2008
Posted to the web 24 January 2008
Kitsepile Nyathi
Nairobi
Children show fish which they caught along what used to be the main road between Caia and Sena, which has been flooded, in Mozambique's Zambezi valley yesterday.
In Zimbabwe it was dubbed the "Mother of all Agricultural Seasons", amid high hopes that a normal rainy season would reverse almost 10 years of decline in agricultural productivity, which has spawned unending food shortages and an economic recession.
But after almost two months of torrential rainfall, Southern Africa is once again facing another failed cropping season, that will worsen food security in some countries, analysts have warned.
Since early December, Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe have been hit by exceptionally heavy rainfall, which has caused floods described by meteorologists as the "worst in living memory". Already 45 lives have been lost in Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe since the flooding began, while thousands of homes were washed away and vast swathes of crops were destroyed.
Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa last week declared the flooding a state of national disaster as heavy rains continued to fall in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi, feeding into rivers running through Mozambique, particularly Zambezi.
The four countries lie on the Zambezi River Basin, an area that is prone to flooding owing to the presence of some of Africa's biggest man-made lakes. These are Cahora Bassa and Kariba, which has also recorded unusually high summer rainfall this season.
Thousands of lives
Zambezi River, the fourth largest in Africa, is already overflowing, threatening thousands of lives and crops downstream and heightening fears of a severe flooding season. Last weekend, relief agencies estimated that close to 60,000 people have been displaced in Mozambique and a further 100,000 were at risk while in Zimbabwe around 2,000 were affected in the country's low-lying areas.
There are also reports of widespread destruction of large tracts of crop fields, with affected farmers already contemplating starting all over again. Power failures in Zimbabwe and Zambia due to collapsing electricity grids have become the immediate effects of the worsening floods but analysts feel famine would be the long-term consequence.
Zimbabwe, which is in the middle of its worst economic crisis since independence 28 years ago, is the hardest hit, with aid agencies already predicting a disastrous agricultural season. According to the latest disaster alert issued by the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNET), the floods have disrupted the entire agricultural season and destroyed productive assets such as cattle for most of Zimbabwe's rural peasants.
The former southern African economic powerhouse is struggling to feed itself and President Robert Mugabe's government had been pinning hopes of an economic turnaround on a successful agricultural season.
FEWSNET, which is an arm of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), says effects of the 10-year-old economic recession would make it particularly difficult for Zimbabwe to recover from the floods, especially after successive years of droughts and failed cropping seasons.
"Zimbabwean government estimates indicate that, midway through December 2007, farmers had planted about 32 per cent more area under maize than had been planted around the same time last season," reads the report. "However, in most parts of the country heavy rains since mid-December have slowed land preparation and planting and promoted weed growth. Most rivers are at risk of flooding and many low-lying areas have already been flooded."
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Excessive rainfall has also compromised the growth of established crops, particularly in low-lying fields where heavy clay soils have been water-logged. Fields with lighter, sandy soils have been leached of nutrients, added the report. "Fertiliser is scarce this season, but even those farmers with access to fertiliser will not apply it if the rains continue with the same intensity," FEWSNET said. Analysts say Zimbabwe's neighbours were better prepared to deal with the floods this time around because their infrastructure had improved.
In the 2000/1 season when Southern Africa was hit by floods of a similar magnitude, Mozambique, which was still recovering from decades of civil war, was the worst affected, triggering a humanitarian crisis of huge proportions. "Zimbabwe still had proper infrastructure and the authorities were able to contain the situation," said Mr Emmert Makombe, an agronomist based in Chiredzi, southern Zimbabwe.
"But this year without fertiliser and seed for replanting the situation is bound to be worse for our farmers." This time there is no chance for recovery. One of the reasons Zimbabwe survived the Cyclone Eline-induced floods in the 2000/2001 farming season was because it still had a viable commercial farming sector and the economic problems blamed on Mr Mugabe's policies were just setting in.
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