Former president Peter Mutharika has encouraged Lhomwe people to diversify food choices and move away from reliance on maize to deal with perennial hunger in the Southern Region.
Speaking yesterday during Mulhako wa Alhomwe Cultural Festival at Chonde in Mulanje, the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) leader, who is a patron of the cultural grouping, said Lhomwe people in the past relied on crops such as pigeon peas, cassava, sweet potatoes and millet for food.
He said: “These crops are drought resistant as they do not require a lot of rain. Of course, we should grow maize but we need to move to these traditional foods to deal with perennial hunger.”
Many areas in the Southern Region were impacted by drought conditions during the 2023/24 growing season leaving about 5.7 million people in the country requiring humanitarian assistance between October this year and March 2025.
At the cultural festival, Mutharika, who is expected to be the DPP torchbearer in the September 16 2025 General Elections, urged people to register.
He, however, spoke against suicide, victimisation of girls, trafficking in persons and attacks against the elderly in the country.
The former president noted that it is common in the Lhomwe belt districts such as Phalombe, Mulanje and Thyolo for people to send children to Mozambique to work in farms.
“I appeal to chiefs and all community leaders to ensure that the culture of sending children to other areas should stop,” said Mutharika.
The cultural event was held under the theme Unity for a Common Purpose.
Speaking earlier, Blessings Makwinja, a representative of Lhomwe Paramount Chief Kaduya, mentioned the continued rise in prices of goods and services, unemployment, natural disasters and hunger as some of the challenges that people are facing.
He said people from the Lhomwe belt will register for the 2025 General Elections and vote massively on polling day as a way of resolving these challenges.
In his remarks, the organising committee chairperson Felix Tambulasi said they faced many challenges in raising funds because of the poor economic situation in the country.
“Despite the challenges, various individuals and organisations contributed and we have raised K180 million which has been used to buy food and cover other costs for this event,” said Tambulasi, a private practice lawyer.
People’s Democratic Party president Kondwani Nankhumwa, Alliance for Democracy president Enoch Chihana, UTM patron Newton Kambala and Rumphi East lawmaker Kamlepo Kalua were among politicians who attended the event.
The festival was spiced up by traditional dances such as Gulewamkulu and chisamba.
