HARARE, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- At least 1.1 million rural people in Zimbabwe will be food insecure during the peak of the hunger season in January-March 2018, according to a humanitarian agency report.
According to the Zimbabwe -Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZimVAC) 2017 rural livelihoods assessment report, the 1.1 million people constitute 11 percent of the country's rural population that will be food insecure.
This is a major decline from the 4.1 million people or 42 percent of Zimbabweans that were food insecure during January to March this year as a result of a devastating drought last year.
The reduction in the estimated number of rural people who would be food insecure in 2018 is due to the bumper maize harvest recorded by Zimbabwe this year after 2.1 million tons of the staple maize were produced against national annual consumption of 1.8 million tons.
"As expected, there is a progressive increase in the proportion of food insecure households as the consumption year progresses toward the peak hunger period," said ZimVAC in the report.
ZimVAC is a consortium of Zimbabwe government, United Nations agencies, Non Governmental Organizations and other international organizations established in 2002, led and regulated by the government with the mandate of promoting a muti-sectoral response to food insecurity and nutrition problems in the country.
