Zimbabwe moves to bring in food

Donors had warned that more food aid was needed

The Zimbabwean government has announced it will import 1.2m tons of the staple food, maize, over the next few months.

However, the state-run Grain Marketing Board head denied opposition charges that the country had run out of food.

Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) official Renson Gasela accused the government of failing to act while the country faced "a national catastrophe".

President Robert Mugabe has accused the MDC of exaggerating food shortages and turned down offers of food aid.

Meanwhile, Zimbabwean newspaper, The Standard, has reported that a national park was instructed to slaughter elephants in order to feed villagers at last week's Independence Day celebrations.

Shortages

GMB head retired army Col Samuel Muvuti called the MDC "ignorant and irresponsible," and said it wanted to spread "alarm and despondency", reports the state-run Herald newspaper.

He said imports had already started to arrive and said feeding the nation was the government's priority after drought in February and March.

The land seizures caused food shortages, critics say

On Wednesday, Mr Gasela said Zimbabwe would harvest only about 500,000 tonnes of maize against a demand of 1.8m tonnes.

"Any honest government, having misled the nation that there was more than enough maize, even to the extent of stopping donors, would apologise to the nation for its omission or commission," he said.

There are also shortages of other basics like toothpaste and margarine.

Ahead of parliamentary elections in March, President Mugabe did admit that Zimbabwe would have to import grain following drought and a poor harvest.

The country is facing a foreign exchange crisis, with production of cash crops such as tobacco only a fraction of what it was before the seizure of white-owned farms.

Critics blame food shortages on the land reform programme which has seen thousands of white farmers forced to leave their land in the past five years.

The government blames food shortages on drought and economic sabotage by Western countries, led by the UK, opposed to land reform.