Malawi Government and other stakeholders are assessing the food situation at the household level to determine the number of people still facing food shortage.
In May last year, government in collaboration with the World Food Programme (WFP), started distributing relief food to households affected by hunger following the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment (MVAC) report indicating that over 1.6 million families were food insecure.
The number of the affected households was revised in October 2012 to over 1.9 million.
Ministry of Economic Planning and Development deputy director for Development Division, who is also the ministry’s public relations officer, Jollam Innocent Banda, said in an interview that although the food situation improves at household level during harvest period, the ministry and MVAC officials wanted to ascertain the extent of food insecurity.
“Using the Household Economy Approach (HEA), the ministry, with stakeholders, is conducting the vulnerability assessment exercise which will provide information on the household food security situation in the country,” said Banda.
Banda said the exercise that started three weeks ago is expected to be completed end this month.
The assessment comes at a time the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security has released the 2012/13 second round national agriculture production estimates indicating that the country will realise a maize surplus of 358 804 metric tonnes.
The second-round estimates are lower than the first-round estimates by almost 50 percent.
The status report has also predicted excess harvest in crops such as rice, groundnuts and crops under the beans family.
