Tough going for poor households

The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fewsnet) says due to both low crop production and limited income sources, poor households will likely be unable to cover their livelihood protection.

In its recent household economy outcome analysis, the US-funded activity says as a result, poor and very poor households will face difficulty meeting their food consumption needs amid rising prices.

Reads the analysis in part: “During the October-to-January period, very poor households in the livelihood zone will primarily rely on in-kind labour payments and income from labor employment to access food.

“However, these sources of income will be insufficient to meet the atypically high costs of food. As a result, very poor households are expected to experience a kilocalorie deficit between October and January as the lean season intensifies.”

The analysis shows that in the June-to-September period, very poor and poor households will primarily rely on own-produced food up to end of July 2023, when their own-produced food stocks will likely become depleted.

Meanwhile, prices of maize are expected to remain atypically high during the period from June to September 2023.

Fewsnet projects maize prices to trend significantly higher-than-normal from October to January, with a likelihood of ranging between K400 to K900 per kilogramme.

This represents a substantial increase, with prices estimated to be around 218 percent higher than the five-year average.

Already, on the produce market, maize is fetching an average of K29 000, K4 000 above government’s recommended K25 000 per kg.

Consumers Association of Malawi (Cama) executive director John Kapito observed that because of the poor yield of maize this year, prices will escalate further.

He said: “We expect to see massive scarcities of maize as well towards the lean period—August to February—when prices will double from the current market prices.

“However, our prayer is that government is able to read these signs and can properly prepare to restock its grain reserves to avert this situation.”.