Hunger bites

 It is only the beginning of the country’s lean period, yet hundreds of ultra-poor households in Mulanje and Phalombe are already invading Mulanje Mountain searching for wild tubers for survival.

During a visit to the two districts last week, Weekend Nation found that for almost three months now, some households have been digging the sour roots, known locally as mipama or mikaya, for survival.

While the consumption of wild tubers is an ancient tradition which serves multiple purposes, here it is because communities cannot afford to buy maize and other related foods. Their crops, livestock and houses were washed away by Cyclone Freddy early this year.

The visit took Weekend Nation to villages of Phunduma in Traditional Authority (T/A) Mkhumba, Chitimbe in T/A Nyambalo in Phalombe and Kambenje in T/A Nkanda in Mulanje.

“Life is tough and we have no choice. A kilogramme of maize is selling between K800 and K900 here. This is beyond my weekly income which I make after doing piece-works,” lamented 40-year-old Daniel Maneya at his home village, Phunduma.

To survive, Maneya, his 36-year-old wife Marita and their four children, wake up early in the morning and walk about two hours to Thuchila Forest in Mulanje Mountain to dig mipama, generally just enough for a day or two meals.

The tasteless tubers are boiled for about four hours to remove the toxic substance before consumption.

Maggie John, 50, said although the wild yams are not palatable, they have no option but to eat them as a coping mechanism due to the family’s food insecurity.

“Each day, there are scores of families in the forest from different villages such as Makolera, Mangozo, Namoliwa, Nyambalo and Daundi digging the tubers,” she said.

Village Head Phunduma, in an interview, told Weekend Nation at her house in the foot of Mulanje Mountain, that the situation was dire but counts herself lucky that the poisonous tubers has, so far, not harmed any of her subjects.

“We have just started the lean period and I don’t know what will be the story for these vulnerable households by November of December. Government should hear our pleas,” she bemoaned.

Member of Parliament (MP) for Phalombe South, the worst-hit area, Mary Mpanga, said in a separate interview that she already alerted government through the Ministry of Agriculture about the food situation in her constituency.

She said: “I alerted government about people surviving on wild tubers and I made follow-ups through the Minister of Agriculture, unfortunately, I have received no feedback.

“When Cyclone Freddy struck, government only assisted the people during the first month. They travel long distances to dig mipama in the forest

 because they have no choice.

“Some can afford to buy maize, but the only Admarc is at Phalombe Boma. And as of August 30 2023, only 800 bags had been received against five T/As that constitute Phalombe South.”

Botanist Zacharia Magombo from the National Herbarium and Botanical Gardens of Malawi, in an interview, said there are about 10 species of yams across Malawi.

These yams are in the genus Dioscorea with the most common ones being Dioscorea odoratissima, which have edible tubers and Dioscorea bulbifera, whose tubers are poisonous.

He explained that typically, the tubers have different toxic compounds which need to be detoxified before consuming them.

Magombo cited, as an example, a disaster that struck the family of Assani Masese in Mangochi, where five children and a grandchild died on the same day in May 2005 after they wrongly identified a poisonous tuber for the edible one.

While the Mangochi incident remains the most tragic, other people have also died after eating poisonous tubers in districts such as Mulanje, Dedza, Ntcheu, Nsanje, Chikwawa and Thyolo.

Nutritionist Honest Chirwa from Royal Medical Centre in Blantyre said the country’s food chain has recommended foods people are supposed to eat and Dioscorea bulbifera, also known as bitter yam, comes in different forms.

“I would not recommend people to eat because of its toxic content unless one is sure that all toxins have been removed,” he said.

The food situation in Phalombe and Mulanje is not isolated as the 2023 Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), an innovative multi-partner initiative for improving food security and nutrition analysis and decision-making, indicates that three million people in the country, representing 15 percent of the population, are already experiencing high acute food insecurity.

According to IPC, the situation is expected to worsen during the period from October 2023 to March 2024 where about 4.4 million people, representing 22 percent of the population will require humanitarian assistance to sustain livelihoods and mitigate food consumption gaps.