Mauritius' inclusion in the food security assessments is currently under consideration. Revised food security assessments for the current marketing year show that regional cereal availability, assessed at 28.12 million tonnes, is sufficient to cover consumption and strategic reserve requirements which stand at 26.79 million tonnes, leaving an overall cereal surplus of 1.33 million tonnes. According to the bulletin, an anticipated harvest of between 16 million and 20.5 million tonnes of maize has been forecast for 1997 compared to 20.34 million tonnes last year. Preliminary forecasts for Malawi put maize output at 2.05 million tonnes, slightly above last year's above average harvest of 2.04 million tonnes. Increased maize output is also expected in Zimbabwe should ''good rainfall, inter-spaced with sunny intervals, prevail up to the end of the season as well as in Zambia, Swaziland and Namibia,'' the bullentin says.
Poor rainfall is reported only in northern Tanzania and central Angola.
More than 280,000 people in the Kilimanjaro, Arusha and Tanga regions in northern Tanzania are in need of emergency food supplies due to prolonged drought following failure of the short rains. Although a regional maize surplus is predicted, maize imports remain necessary to meet consumption needs before the next harvest in most countries except South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe which have surpluses. Even in Tanzania where the rains have been poor, the domestic deficit in maize is expected to be covered by the cross substitution with cassava. A total of 639,000 tonnes of maize, or close to 70 percent of total planned imports of 931,000 tonnes, have been received so far. Millions of land-mines wantonly planted during Angola's 17 years of civil war have rendered most agricultural land useless.