'No need to import food,' Mugabe says

STARVING Zimbabweans should not import food as government has redistributed land to thousands of people to produce requirements, President Mugabe said today.

Nearly five million people  - half of the country's rural population -  need assistance as a result of the ongoing drought.

Addressing a handful of mourners at the burial of Charles Utete at the National Hero's Arce, Mugabe said there was no need to import food.

"We are not yet done. The land is in our hands.

"We are not yet gone. A true land reform programme must give way to agrarian reform.

"We should never hunger, never import food, never ever, there is no cause for it.

"Those who have land must please use it properly, produce.

"Those who need it let them have it, let them have it to use it to produce, not to use it to seat on and to pride themselves on the fact that ah we now have the land...".

Zimbabwe is one of the worst affected countries by the driest year in decades facing southern Africa.

Mugabe  declared a "state of disaster".

However, government has been  buying grain from neighbouring countries.