Zimbabwe imports corn from once-poor Zambia

Zimbabwe’s neighbour Zambia says it has struck a deal to sell 300,000 tons of corn to ease food shortages in Zimbabwe, the region’s former breadbasket.

Zambia’s state food reserve agency said the sale would reduce its food surplus by half.

A decade ago, Zimbabwe exported food to Zambia. The reversal of fortunes came after Zimbabwe’s often violent seizure of thousands of white-owned commercial farms, which disrupted the agriculture-based economy and drove many white farmers into Zambia.

In November, the United Nations said 1.5 million Zimbab-weans would need food aid through 2012 and appealed for £160 million in donor funding to buy it.

Since 2000, about 4,500 white farmers have been forced out by a land redistribution programme that president Robert Mugabe said was intended to correct colonial-era imbalances.