Food and starvation have hogged the African headlines these past few weeks. In Central Africa, millions face starvation as a drought bites, while further North, the Sahara inexorably consumes thousands of acres of once productive land each year. But, as we dug beneath these two stark facts, we found ourselves confronted with a tangle of questions, contradictions and controversies.
In Angola, the government and the UN are squabbling about who should feed the tens of thousands of Unita ex-combatants and their families. In Malawi, there's a spat going on between the government, which sold all its food stocks to pay off a loan; the World Bank who made the loan; and the EU who funded a first-world expert who recommended that food stocks be lowered but not eliminated. Further South in Zimbabwe, commercial farming has come to a near halt, while those newly settled on the land have not been able to produce crops. The Zimbabwe government turned away a load of genetically modified grain as being unsafe, while other unmodified food aid is being given preferentially to government supporters. South Africa has imported grain for the first time in years, as stocks are readied to be moved further North. White Zimbabwe farmers have been allocated land in Angola and Mozambique to practice modern large-scale agriculture in place of local subsistence farming. The USA is to lend $50 million to Zambia for maize imports.
In Angola, the government and the UN are squabbling about who should feed the tens of thousands of Unita ex-combatants and their families. In Malawi, there's a spat going on between the government, which sold all its food stocks to pay off a loan; the World Bank who made the loan; and the EU who funded a first-world expert who recommended that food stocks be lowered but not eliminated. Further South in Zimbabwe, commercial farming has come to a near halt, while those newly settled on the land have not been able to produce crops. The Zimbabwe government turned away a load of genetically modified grain as being unsafe, while other unmodified food aid is being given preferentially to government supporters. South Africa has imported grain for the first time in years, as stocks are readied to be moved further North. White Zimbabwe farmers have been allocated land in Angola and Mozambique to practice modern large-scale agriculture in place of local subsistence farming. The USA is to lend $50 million to Zambia for maize imports.