The United Nations World Food Programme is turning away from buying most of its southern African food aid from South Africa and is buying increasing amounts from Zambia, the WFP's regional director said on Friday.
South Africa has long been the main source for food purchases in the region, but the WFP's Mike Sackett said in the first 10 months of 2005 the agency had only bought 62,000 tonnes of food from South Africa against 73,000 tonnes from Zambia.
Last year South Africa accounted for more than three-fifths of food bought by WFP in the region.
The WFP had noticed the advantages of Zambia's crop which comes only a couple of years after the country suffered serious drought-induced crop failure when South African maize futures peaked in February 2004 at over 1,500 ($258.6) rand a tonne.
"We were beginning to look actively at buying from Argentina when we became aware of good prices in Zambia," Sackett told Reuters in an interview at the UN's Johannesburg offices.
There were also transport cost advantages for purchases for neighbouring Malawi, he said. In recent weeks, South African maize prices climbed back above 1,000 rand a tonne on drought fears but have since subsided after rains arrived.
Zambia had emerged from several years of food shortages due to favourable weather and government agricultural support programmes, Sackett said.
White farmers moving from Zimbabwe to Zambia might make up some 10 percent of the increased production, he said. Traders say South Africa's strengthening rand has also put foreign buyers off purchasing its maize.
The rand has firmed from a low of 7.60 to the dollar in January to its current level of 5.84/dlr, hitting levels not seen since 1999.
The WFP was also looking at increasing the amount of food it bought in other countries in the region, both to save money and boost local agriculture, he said. "We're certainly looking to go the extra mile to buy more in Mozambique," he said.
Poor rain, economic decline and the effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic left more than 14 million southern Africans short of food since 2002, but 2004 has been a better year. In the first 10 months of 2004 the WFP bought 211,000 tonnes of food for the region against 494,000 tonnes in the whole of 2003.
The WFP was currently in the market to buy around 20,000 tonnes of food for southern African countries, including about 10,000 tonnes of white maize, he said. Most of this would probably come from Zambia, with some from South Africa, he said.
The food was to meet needs in Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland, Mozambique and pockets of Zambia, he said and the entire food purchase was spread across up to 100 tenders, some of which had closed. The WFP was also distributing small amounts of food in Zimbabwe, he said, targeted at vulnerable groups such as orphans. With farmers across southern Africa currently planting crops, it was too soon to say how the 2005 harvest would turn out, he said.
But the effects of the AIDS pandemic sweeping the continent would likely increase the number of people such as AIDS orphans or those who could not work because of sickness who were simply unable to buy food even when it was available, he said.
"We will see an increase in those who need food aid even in a good year," he said. "Ideally, these people would receive a combination of cash and food."