Det står så slemt til, at befolkningen nærmest har opgivet at plante afgrøder, da regnen og mangel på gødning alligevel ender med at ødelægge alt. Familier har ikke meget at se frem til.
HARARE, 14 March 2013 (IRIN): Laina Tavengwa, 34, from Wedza District in Zimbabwe’s Mashonaland East Province, no longer sees a point in farming her family’s four-hectare plot.
When the first rains of the season fell in mid-November last year, she reluctantly heeded (efterkom) her husband’s advice to start planting, but she put only a hectare under maize and allocated an acre to groundnuts.
The crop suffered under a dry spell in December, and when heavy rains set in, Tavengwa was unable to tend (passe) the plot or apply fertilizer – which she did not have anyway.
“When the heavy rains stopped, my maize, just like that of my neighbours, was yellowing and looked too sick, and I vowed (gjorde det klart) to my husband that I would never again think of planting maize in my lifetime.
“There is no reason to be going back to the fields every year when you know that you are never going to get anything out of them,” she told IRIN.
Most of the maize crop in Goto Village, where Tavengwa resides, is of uneven height, looks sickly and bears small cobs.
“There is no hope of a good harvest this year again. For the fourth year, we will have to beg for food from well-wishers. I have travelled across Wedza and it seems the majority of the people will not have much to put in their granaries,” Simon Maveza, a village elder, told IRIN.
Though rains have recently returned, Maveza said it was too late for their crops, mostly maize, to recover.
Critical condition
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http://irinnews.org/Report/97645/Grim-food-security-outlook-for-Zimbabwe