this year than last year, with about 12% of the total rural population, or around one million people being vulnerable, down from 15% last year.3 By September, our own findings in Gwanda – which in the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZIMVAC) report, as in the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) report, is not identified as among the most needy districts ‐ indicate that, in some wards at least, more than 20% of families may be seriously food insecure. There is enough grain in the country this year to meet consumption, with between 900,000 and 1,6 million tonnes estimated to have been harvested.4 Maize is also currently being freely imported into the country, at a lower price than that of locally produced maize, so the assumption is that families will be able to purchase maize within their vicinity. We noted that maize meal was indeed available even in rural stores, and so are seeds for planting, but at $5 to $7 for 10 kg maize meal and $23 per 10 kg bag of seed, they are unaffordable to a significant proportion of families. One in five families had no maize meal at all in the house on the day we visited. Hunger is being compounded by the slow roll‐out of donor food for vulnerable families. CARE will not be rolling out its Feeding of Vulnerable Groups (FVG) in Gwanda for several weeks yet, as they are only beginning their process of identification of beneficiaries in November. There has been no donor feeding or Food For Work for several months in this area. This means that already‐desperate families will only begin to receive food nearly two months into the peak hunger period – when some of these families have been in crisis since early September. This has implications, particularly for children, who suffer high rates of stunted growth in rural Zimbabwe. CARE intends to reach 18% of Gwanda residents with FVG this year, or 26,000 people. They agree with our assessment that roll out is not happening fast enough, but they have other livelihood‐linked programmes to wrap up and do not have the capacity to move any faster on the programme. The 18% target will reach a good number of those most vulnerable, bearing in mind our finding that 21% of families were already, two months ago, eating only one meal a day, although it is clear that everyone in serious need may not be reached. The identification of most needy families is an issue that needs to be kept permanently in mind by donors, who rely largely on communities and their leadership to put the families forward. This leaves the system open to abuse along political lines, or other lines based on long standing community disputes where some families may be ostracized. However, donors in Zimbabwe have years of experience in circumnavigating this and have shown that they react quickly when this is flagged. 3 FAO and WFP: “Agricultural Produce and Inputs Markets: to assess the functionality of rural markets for agricultural inputs as well as agricultural produce”: report disseminated in Sept 2011. 4 The FAO/WFP report talks of a harvest in 2011 of 1,6 million, but this estimate was made in April: in October, the CFU refers to 900,000 tonnes of maize. 8