BLANTYRE - Aid agencies say 12 million people in southern Africa face severe food shortages and will need food aid until the next harvest starts around April 2006.
Drought and a raging AIDS pandemic which is killing much of the rural workforce, plus poor farming practices leading to serious soil erosion have hit food output and increased poverty.
Poor government planning in places has led to an inadequate rollout of seed and fertilisers to peasant farmers.
Maize is the region's main staple crop.
Following are facts and figures based on estimates derived from the U.N's World Food Programme (WFP), other aid agencies and national vulnerable assessment committees.
MALAWI: One of the hardest hit countries; some 5 million people, almost half the population, need food aid until April.
Hopes of a good harvest this year were dashed by a prolonged dry spell at the most critical growing stage.
Malawi has been hard hit by AIDS and is densely populated by regional standards.
Overcrowding in rural areas has forced small farmers to sow crops on steep hillsides, leading to serious soil erosion which may cripple the country's ability to feed itself for decades.
ZIMBABWE: The government was reported on Wednesday as saying it needed to import food to feed 2.2 million people but aid agencies have said 4 million people, one third of the population, will need handouts until April next year.
A preliminary Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee report indicated that 2.9 million people would need food aid, an estimated 36 percent of the rural population.
Critics say Zimbabwe's woes have been exacerbated by the seizure of white-owned farms for distribution to landless blacks -- a process they say was chaotic, badly planned and destroyed commercial agriculture.
But some observers say many white-owned commercial farms grew export crops such as tobacco and drought was responsible for the poor maize harvest, as the government maintains.
LESOTHO: The WFP estimates that 549,000 people face significant food shortages until April 2006 and that it needs more than 20,000 tonnes of maize to feed them.
Maize output rose 15 percent this year, but the WFP says assessment teams suspect Lesotho's cereal output is in a downward trend because of long-term soil erosion, erratic weather and the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
SWAZILAND: An estimated 227,000 people, nearly one quarter of the AIDS-hit country's population, will face severe food shortages until April 2006.
ZAMBIA: After a good 2004 harvest, a prolonged drought severely reduced this year's maize crop. Recent vulnerability assessments by the government and its partners indicate that 1.2 million people will need food aid this year.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
