'Stop eating donor food'

2008-01-11 20:09

Mbabane - Swaziland's King Mswati III, Africa's last absolute monarch, has called on his subjects to wean themselves off foreign food aid after the landlocked country enjoyed its best rainfall in years.

In a speech to army cadets on Thursday who had been helping cultivate farmland owned by the crown, Mswati said recent downpours after a lengthy period of drought should encourage farmers to attend to their fields.

"The time has come for us to come out of the dependency syndrome and start eating our own food that we have cultivated in our fields instead of depending on the donor community," Mswati said in comments carried by state media.

More than 450 000 Swazis currently live on food aid after a series of poor harvests dating back five years.

The government declared a national disaster in June last year after maize production more than halved, prompting the United Nations to appeal for some $15m from the international community to avert mass starvation.

Swaziland, a landlocked kingdom wedged between South Africa and Mozambique, is one of the poorest countries on the continent with around 70% of the 1.1 million population living on less than a dollar a day.

- AFP