The IoS Christmas Appeal: Life or death in Zimbabwe depends on a sack of seeds

January to March are known as the "hungry months" in Zimbabwe, when food stocks from the previous harvest are running low or exhausted. People are used to stretching their diet with roots and wild fruits while waiting for their crops to ripen.

But this year the hungry times have never gone away. Save the Children, whose work in Zimbabwe is being supported by The Independent on Sunday Christmas Appeal, warned this weekend that acute child malnutrition in parts of the country had increased by almost two-thirds since last year. Lynn Walker, programmes director in Zimbabwe, said: "In areas where we work, some children are wasting away from lack of food."

Food stocks have been perilously low throughout 2008, and drought is only partly to blame. Economic collapse, leading to fuel shortages and the deterioration of rural roads, has prevented supplies of seeds and fertilisers getting through. Weeks of violence during the country's election campaign, when foreign aid agencies were banned from working for five months, made things even worse. In many areas people have already reached the end of their tether: there are not even roots left to eat, and large tracts of bush have been burnt out in attempts to catch wild animals for their meat.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP), which saw the crisis coming, says five million people – half the population remaining in Zimbabwe – need emergency food aid. But Save the Children, which distributes WFP supplies to more than 200,000 people, says the UN agency is 18,000 tonnes short of the food needed for January, leaving it with only around half the amount it needs for the month. Supplies for February and March are even less certain.

"We have already been forced to reduce the rations of emergency food we are delivering because there isn't enough to go round," Ms Walker said. "If, as we fear, the food aid pipeline into Zimbabwe begins to fail in the new year, millions will suffer."

Even though the rains have been good so far this season, their impact will be limited, because not enough food crops have been planted. According to Zimbabwe's Commercial Farmers' Union, the country will produce less than 40 per cent of the amount it needs of maize, the staple crop, to feed the population.

All this helps to explain why the seeds and fertiliser Save the Children were distributing in one of the country's poorest areas could, without exaggeration, mean the difference between life and death for many of the people assembled to receive them.

At 38, Lista has been twice widowed, leaving her with four children between the ages of seven and 17. Both her husbands were fishermen on nearby Lake Kariba. "Most of the time we are hungry," she said. "Sometimes we go to bed without eating, sometimes we just have makuli roots. We have to eat them, even though they give us stomach cramps."

Until the seed she was receiving produces food, the family will be completely dependent on handouts. "I make clay pots, and send the children out to try and sell them," Lista said. "Sometimes I just have to tell them to go out and beg whatever they can. If we could grow our own food, they could go to school instead of begging."

The crowd, almost all women, waited patiently as Save the Children's helpers carefully counted out 50kg bags of seed and checked them off against lists of households. One explained that each family would receive 10kg of sorghum kernels and 5kg each of sunflower seeds and groundnuts, along with two types of fertiliser. A stream of women staggered back with the heavy sacks to where their village groups were waiting. The division of seeds was watched by everyone, to ensure fairness to the satisfaction of all.

Save the Children advises its beneficiaries on how to plant their seeds, and appoints "lead farmers" in each area to keep an eye on the crop. "We only give seed to people who can use it," said a supervisor. "If they sell what we give them, or eat the seeds instead of planting them, they do not get any in the next distribution." It is a measure of the area's poverty that nearly two-thirds of the households were receiving seeds this time.

Having filled a plastic sack with sorghum kernels and heaved it on to her head, Lista was preparing to walk the four miles home. The rest of the supplies would have to be left with friends until she could carry them back. What did the distribution of the seeds mean to her and her family? "Without this," she said simply, "my children would die."

Money raised so far

The Independent on Sunday Christmas Appeal has already raised over £41,000, but with Zimbabwe's people facing starvation, much more is still needed...

£30 will buy chilli plants and fencing to protect a family food plot from wild animals.

£33 will buy the tools for a family to grow food, including a hoe, spade, bucket and watering can.

£66 will provide a family with seeds and fertiliser so they can grow their own food.

£200 will buy a village an oil press, so at least 250 people can make cooking oil from sunflower seeds they receive as food aid.