Zimbabwe admits its out of food...

...because they have evicted white farmers...

Zimbabwe's bankrupt government finally admitted yesterday that it had run out of food because land seized from whites was given to amateurs with no "passion for farming".

As the country faces its worst agricultural season in its post-colonial history, a newcomer to the cabinet spelled out the scale of the catastrophe more plainly than any of his colleagues.

Sylvester Nguni, the deputy minister of agriculture and a former businessmen, blamed falling food production on President Robert Mugabe's "new" farmers.

"We have a few people that are really committed to production, while many others are doing nothing on the farms," he told the state-controlled Herald.

"The problem is we gave land to people lacking the passion for farming and this is why every year production has been declining."

About 4,000 white farmers were violently evicted from their land after a new party, the Movement for Democratic Change, came within a whisker of defeating Mr Mugabe in the 2000 election.