For Joyce Benson of Khonjeni in Thyolo District, the past year has been marred by a desperate struggle for food.
The maize farmer, a single mother of three, seldom harvests enough to feed her family, with surplus for sale.
Unfortunately, last year, her crop was scorched by dry spells.
The tragedy repeated itself early this year with prolonged dry spell caused by the El Nino weather pattern across the Southern Region.
Unpredictable rains, coupled with rising fertiliser prices, left her with too little to feed her children.
She could only buy a few bags of fertiliser using money from Climate-Smart Enhanced Public Works programme,.
“I always invest the little I earn in maize maize production, but last year, my hard-earned spending went down the drain,” says Benson.
Since March this year, she has been living hand-to-mouth, solely relying on what she would earn from piecework and the public works programmes in the neighbourhood.
Through the programme, she earns less than K50 000 when payouts are due.
However, the stipend for public works has been negatively affected by the skyrocketing cost of living.
“The sum could only buy a 50 kilogramme [kg] bag of maize,” Benson says. “As such, we used to survive on green mangoes even though my children were not pleased with the seasonal fruit. At times, we could drink tea. But we count afford a proper meal.”
Benson’s fortunes changed when she started receiving relief maize distributed by government to cushion vulnerable households affected by drought.
Government rolled out the programme following the devaluation of the local currency by 44 percent in November 2023.
For Benson, it has become handy due to the devastating effects of El Nino, which has left nearly 5.7 million Malawians in need of food aid.
“The programme was timely. When I received the first 50kg bag of maize, I was delighted. At last, my family could have a proper meal,” she says.
She invested part of the food aid, together with funds from the climate-smart public works programme, in a fritters business.
The business guarantees her “considerable profits” for day-to-day needs of her family.
Thousands of families in Thyolo, which was heavily affected by El Nino effects, are benefitting from the programme to lessen the extremes impacts of devaluation and climate change.
Traditional Authority Kapichi says the relief maize programme has helped cushion food-insecure families just when “prices of nearly everything are increasing every day due to the weakening currency” and climate-related weather shocks.
“My people are hit hard by the effects of the kwacha devaluation. We expected many to struggle considering that their crops failed due to drought,” says the traditional leader.
But Kapichi says the humanitarian initiative was a timely safeguard for vulnerable families, including households that receive monthly social cash transfers.
Thyolo District Commissioner Hudson Kuphanga says the council expresses optimism that through the programme, communities will no longer rely on disappearing mangoes as was did many last year.
“The programme targets extremely poor households that did not harvest anything in the previous growing season,” he says.
Kuphanga says Thyolo District Council will ensure no household affected by hunger is left behind.
“The government is committed to cushion everyone, especially after the devaluation, which triggered a sharp rise in prices of commodities, making life difficult for Malawians,” he says.
After devaluing the kwacha, Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs Simplex Chithyola Banda outlined several initiatives to safeguard the poor from sliding into dehumanising poverty.
Apart from food aid, he said government would increase the cash payouts to K150 000 per month for 184 000 people affected by Cyclone Freddy in the Southern Region last year.
Beneficiaries of the Price Shock Urban Emergency Cash Transfer Programme in Zomba, Lilongwe, Blantyre and Mzuzu receive a once-off sum of K150 000.
Besides, the government also increased the count of beneficiaries of the Social Cash Transfer Programme by 10 percent to 15 percent of the country’s ultra-poor population.
AYOBE
Ralph Mawera
