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LUSAKA, June 25 (Reuters) - Britain, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and Libya have pledged food donations to Zambia in the latest response to an appeal by Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa for urgent relief.

Britain said it would donate 10 million pounds while Libya would donate 6,000 tonnes of maize, Mwanawasa said on Tuesday, a day after returning from an official tour of Libya.

The usually cash-strapped OAU said from its Addis Ababa-headquarters that it would donate $200,000 to Zambia as part of the southern African country's efforts to avert a possible famine, Mwanawasa said.

Some four million of Zambia's 11 million people will need food handouts to survive after crop failures in the 2000/2001 and 2001/2002 (April/March) seasons, aid agencies said.

Capricious weather -- a bizarre combination of floods and drought -- reduced Zambia's food production from 700,000 tonnes of the staple maize to 490,000 tonnes in 2000/2001.

No production estimates are available for either 2001/2002 or 2002/2003 but Mwanawasa declared a national disaster in May and said Zambia would have a maize shortfall of 630,000 tonnes.

The U.N. World Food Programme has already said it would launch a feeding programme for more than 2.5 million Zambians too poor to buy food. Hundreds of people in worst-hit areas are surviving on wild fruits alone.

"I am happy that Libya is giving us 6,000 tonnes of food," Mwanawasa said.

The U.N. says most of southern Africa will be hard hit by the food crisis but Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia will bear the brunt.

($1=.66 Pound)