Parliament last week declared the food shortages in some parts of Zambia an emergency, legally compelling Mwanawasa to declare an official national food disaster.

"Now parliament is the highest law making body in the land and in view of this resolve, I hereby declare the current food shortages a disaster in Zambia and I appeal for donor assistance," Mwanawasa told journalists in Lusaka.

Mwanawasa said crop failure due to drought in 2005 in southern, central, eastern and northern parts of Zambia had resulted in the food deficit.

The WFP said in October that some people were surviving on wild fruits, which it said were also being depleted, while others were eating unripe mangoes.

Zambia's staple white maize output declined to 866,000 tonnes in 2005 from 1.3 million tones the previous year.

Millers are currently importing 250,000 tonnes of white maize, but traders say the process has been slowed by shortages of fuel in October and the government's stringent health rules on imported maize.

The UN's World Food Programme said last month it had run out of cash and required an additional $35 million to purchase food for 800,000 people.

The government has been feeding 1.2 million people initially affected by the food shortages, but has seen its resources stretched as the number rose to 1.7 million.

A senior official in the vice president's office told Reuters the disaster declaration could spur western donors to respond promptly to pleas for food aid.

"Donors normally respond slowly in the absence of a disaster situation, but this will now compel them to respond promptly because the situation is grave," the source said.