VICTORIA FALLS, Zimbabwe Zimbabwe, normally a regional breadbasket, may harvest even less maize than previously expected, worsening the outlook for a nation desperately short on food, a report said Saturday. Preliminary reports from a new crop and food supply assessment indicate the harvest now underway could produce only 510,000 tons of maize, down from earlier forecasts of 600,000 tons. Zimbabwe needs about two million tons of maize to feed its 13 million people. This year's crop is less than one third of what the country produced in an average year during the last decade, AFP reported.

The study conducted by the UN's World Food Program (WFP), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET) said that Zimbabwe would need to import 1.77 million tons of maize to survive until the next harvest begins in March 2003. UN officials representing Southern African nations met Saturday in the western resort town of Victoria Falls to organize a regional plan for dealing with the food shortage.

Plans are already in place to import 431,300 tons of maize, leaving a shortfall of 1.3 million tons. "This cereal balance analysis highlights the potential for a human catastrophe in Zimbabwe," the report said. "To avert a humanitarian crisis and potential famine, maize imports and the required financing must be sourced and secured without delay," it said. The food shortage is compounded by a four-year-old economic crisis, which has left about 80 percent of the population in poverty and without enough money to buy foods to replace locally grown maize. Large parts of Southern Africa, including Angola, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe are facing a serious threat of famine, with more than five million people in need of emergency food aid according to the UN.