By Apolinari Tairo
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has a food shortage with an overall decline in food production. Heads of State and government leaders from the bloc’s 16 member countries have called for a comprehensive multi-year response plan for the crisis.
The leaders said that prolonged drought and floods, which hit Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, have exacerbated the problem. In addition, poor harvesting and the effects of climate change have been a major reason for the disaster, they noted.
According to Domingos Gove, the SADC secretariat director for agriculture, food and natural resource, only Zambia and South Africa have adequate food supplies in their granaries.
“Our regional states have experienced poor rainfall, the lowest recorded in the past 15 years,” he said.
He added that the SADC Environmental Vulnerability Assessment Committee was monitoring the situation in the different bloc member states. “We are working with various national environmental vulnerability committees. Read more…
