World | Zimbabwe Zimbabwe, Once Well-Fed, Turns to Eating Bugs As Mugabe blocks aid, starving population's plight nosedives By Jason Farago Posted Dec 22, 2008 6:27 AM CST Copied Children pick up single corn kernels, once only eaten by animals, spilled on the roadside by trucks from South Africa in Masvingo, south of Harare, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2008. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi) Zimbabwe was once "a breadbasket for all of southern Africa," writes Celia Dugger in the New York Times, but a manmade crisis has turned the once-prosperous country into a land of scavengers. The UN says 7 of 10 Zimbabweans eat one meal or fewer a day, thanks to the catastrophic agricultural policies of Robert Mugabe that precipitated economic collapse. "But this year, the hunger is much worse," Dugger reports from outside Harare. On the tiny farms on Mashonaland, which once provided the entire region with food, villagers have been reduced to eating crickets and beetles. But this year Mugabe blocked international charities from providing food to Zimbabwe, insisting they are part of a Western conspiracy to overthrow him. One villager said she could barely survive through the Zimbabwean summer, but when winter comes, "only God knows what will happen." Read These Next Vance defends comments on his wife's faith. Missing Louisiana girl is found in a Pennsylvania basement. Your next UPS package may not arrive in a big brown truck. The Dodgers win it all again. Report an error