WFP to buy record levels of food from Zambia

UN agency provides market for bumper harvests

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said it expected to buy record levels of food from Zambia this year as part of its ongoing drive to provide crisis-hit communities in Southern Africa with sustenance. The food agency said it was currently focusing on procuring food from countries that had enjoyed good harvests in 2007 such as Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique. Although more than half of the two million tons of food WFP has bought from Southern African countries since 2002 has been produced in South Africa, additional cash contributions plus a bumper harvest meant purchases from Zambia could hit record levels this year, it said. In the last five years, the agency has spent US$62 million buying 285,000 tons of food from Zambia, the biggest purchase it has made in the region after South Africa. Josette Sheeran, executive director of WFP, said buying local was not only cost-effective but it also supported small-scale farmers and stimulated local agricultural economies. It really is a win-win situation because local purchases benefit surplus-producing small farmers and traders, while ensuring that WFP can provide those in need in those countries and elsewhere in southern Africa with sufficient food in time," she said. WFP said it has spent around US$430 million buying over two million tons of food from southern Africa since the region was first hit by recurring food crises in 2002. Zambia, South Africa, Malawi and Mozambique have been the main sellers of foodstuff such as cereals, pulses, vegetable oil, corn-soya blend, salt and sugar to WFP. WFP hopes to help over four million vulnerable people across the region before the next main harvest in April 2008. However, WFP reiterated its call for cash from donors to enable it to meet its target to feed four million people over the coming months. Earlier this year the food agency warned that without further contributions it would have to cut food rations it provided to around 500,000 vulnerable people in Zambia.