Shortages threaten Zimbabwe with harvest disaster

ZIMBABWE, once a regional breadbasket, is facing its worst agricultural season since independence in 1980, with shortages of seed, fertiliser and equipment threatening next year’s harvest before it even has been planted, farmers and other experts said.

Some of those warnings were issued Tuesday in testimony before Parliament’s agriculture committee, the state-run Herald newspaper and ruling party-allied Daily Mirror reported.

Fertiliser companies told the committee their warehouses were empty. The Zimbabwe Seed Traders Association said there was only 28,660 tons of maize seed in the country, slightly more than half of what is needed.