4.4m people face hunger

An estimated 4.4 million Malawians are likely to face hunger in the 2023/24 consumption period, representing 22 percent of the country’s projected population of 19.6 million. Government has since committed K167.55 billion for support mechanisms.

The Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee (Mvac) annual food security assessment results published yesterday shows that the current projection represents a 15 percent increase compared to the previous consumption period when 3.9 million people faced hunger.

The results come at a time there is maize scarcity on the market which has led some traders to sell a 50 kilogramme bag of the staple grain at prices ranging from K30 000 to K40 000.

Reads Mvac’s results: “In order to protect livelihoods, the vulnerable population will require humanitarian food assistance that has been estimated at 219 023 metric tonnes [MT] of maize with an estimated cash value of K167.55 billion.

“The food assistance will be required for a period ranging from two to six months.”

Out of the estimated food insecure population, 470 000 are from the four cities of Blantyre, Zomba, Lilongwe and Mzuzu while 3.9 million are from rural areas across the country.

When compared to the previous consumption period, the number of affected people in rural areas has increased by 23 percent as 3.1 million people were affected while urban areas have registered a 25 percent decline from 627 571 people.

The Mvac results come a week after the Ministry of Agriculture’s third and final round of crop production estimates showed that maize production has dropped by 5.6 percent in the 2022/23 growing season to 3.5 million metric tonnes (MT) from 3.71 MT in the 2021/22 agricultural season.

Cyclone Freddy, which made landfall in southern Malawi on March 12 2023, unfavourable weather conditions and low uptake of farm inputs are said to have contributed to the drop in crop production.

Consumer rights activist John Kapito in an interview yesterday blamed the government for failing to take heed of advice in April this year when projections of food insecurity started to surface.

He said: “In April, we warned the government to take appropriate action. It can, for instance, consider winter cropping to address the shortfall. It only takes three months to harvest maize and by now that maize would have been in our silos.”

Kapito said what needs to happen is for the government to find money to bridge the maize shortfall. He said such money could have been used for the Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP) and not for importing maize which will likely be the alternative as regards the food insecurity situation.

He said it is unfortunate that the government does not seem to understand or take into consideration advice it receives from various stakeholders.

Minister of Agriculture Sam Kawale in a written response yesterday argued that despite the Mvac results, the country  

 remains relatively stable in terms of maize availability despite a decline in production.

He said: “In order to effectively respond to areas of food deficit, government has in stock 68 420MT of maize kept by the National Food Reserve Agency and Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation with 15 960 MT.

“In addition to these stocks, government will further procure about 42 000 MT additional maize for the Strategic Grain Reserve using the K12 billion in the National Budget, the Gesd [Contingency Emergency Response Component] through Agricultural Commercialisation Project and African Risk Capacity Insurance payout funds.”

A 2023 Global Report on Food Crises published in May stated that extreme weather conditions, including Cyclone Freddy, would undermine food security throughout the year and expose 3.74 million to hunger.

An analysis Nation on Sunday published on April 24 2022 based on Mvac reports established that food insecurity worsened for a preceding 10-year period from 2011 to 2021 despite heavy investments in farm input subsidies.

In the period under review, Nation on Sunday found that in the years leading up to 2013, Malawians facing food insecurity averaged 1.2 million annually.

Then, in 2014, Mvac results showed that 600 000 people would be in need of food aid, a figure which remained almost the same in 2015. Past the first half of the period under review, the food situation began deteriorating.

Mvac’s 2016 results showed that 6.5 million people were food insecure and the following year, the number dropped to slightly above one million.