Mudenda says answer to looming drought is simple – stop eating sadza and drink porridge

National Assembly Speaker Jacob Mudenda has urged Zimbabweans to eat less sadza / isitshwala and switch to porridge to stretch maize meal supplies ahead of what he warned could be a devastating El Niño drought.

Speaking at a pre-budget seminar in Bulawayo on Friday, he said the country must prepare for a coming “Super El Niño” and warned that government support alone would not be enough.

“If we rely only on the fiscus, some people will die of hunger,” he said.

Mudenda called on MPs to become “apostles of thrift” and to encourage households to cut consumption, avoid waste and make their grain last longer.

He pointed to the 1957 drought, which came ten years after the 1947 drought, when he said families cut back from three meals a day to two and ate porridge instead of sadza.

“In 1957, 10 years after the 1947 drought, people began to change how they fed themselves. They reduced from three meals to two meals. I recall I was a toddler then in 1957; instead of cooking isitshwala / sadza, you cook porridge,” he said.

“Yes, let everybody drink porridge. If you cook porridge, you save on mealie-meal. Tell the people that no sadza / isitshwala should be thrown away.”

He urged families to keep leftovers rather than throw them away.

His warning comes as Zimbabwe faces another difficult farming season. Forecasters have warned of extreme heat, below-normal rainfall and widespread crop failure linked to El Niño.

El Niño is a natural climate phenomenon caused by abnormal warming of surface waters in the central and eastern Pacific, which often brings hotter, drier conditions to southern Africa.

Zimbabwe is particularly vulnerable because millions of rural households depend on rain-fed farming, with limited capacity to irrigate.

The risk is acute after recent shocks. The 2023-2024 El Niño drought devastated agriculture across southern Africa, leaving millions in need of assistance.

Mudenda said the 2027 national budget must therefore prioritise social protection and ensure help reaches vulnerable households.

“Honourable Members, El Niño is coming. The Super El Niño is coming. The 2027 budget therefore should fortify social protection safety nets through which the government honours its pledge to leave no one and no place behind,” he said.

“Through your oversight mandate, you should establish whether these measures reach the vulnerable households for whom they are intended without apology.”

He challenged MPs to start educating their constituencies now, rather than waiting until shortages become acute.

More: ZimLive