In Thumpwa Village, Phalombe District, crop fields look torched by drought. With the maize crop destroyed, there is barely any food.
“My child is always crying,” says Martha Kalumbi, 40. “Doctors tell me she is starving and getting malnourished. I’m afraid that my baby may die.”
“The situation really hurts. All my neighbours are experiencing the same. No one has harvested enough. And there’s nowhere to run to.”
In March this year, Malawi joined Zambia and Zimbabwe in declaring a state of disaster after El Niño exacerbated drought that scorched crops.
According to the Southern African Development Community, this has pushed 68 million people into food insecurity across the region.
Around nine million people, nearly half of Malawi’s population, have been affected. Up to 5.7 million are experiencing ‘acute’ food insecurity following years of back-to-back climate disasters, lost harvests, currency devaluation and high inflation.
“We can avert a hunger catastrophe for the hardest-hit families… but time is not on our side,” says World Food Programme (WFP) country director Paul Turnbull. “In the 2023/24 lean season, we found nine out of 10 Malawian families were indulging in some sort of negative coping mechanism— adults not eating so their children could eat, people selling things they would normally use for productive purposes. Now we are seeing a surge in cases of moderate and severe acute malnutrition at the health centres.”
International Food Policy Research Institute research fellows Jan Duchoslav and Joachim De Weerdt echo Turnbull’s concerns: “People are going hungry already. This should be the season of plenty but food is running out.
“There’s evidence that people’s ability to deal with these things has been eroded over time,” their findings read.”
A bad harvest affects everything.
Maxwell Gwembere, 24, says it is not only his crops that have suffered this year.
“Even tailoring depends on good harvests,” he says. “People buy and bring clothes to me for sewing after selling their cash crops.”
Gwembere harvested half the maize, soya beans and pigeon peas he usually yields on his one-acre farm.
“I’ve already depleted the food and am now buying food. Life is very tough. I don’t know what to do next to feed my family.”
The shift from El Niño to La Niña “tends to bring above-average rainfall to Southern Africa, Duchoslav and De Weerdt warn.
Could this be a cause for hope?
“Not in the short term,” the researchers say, with months to the next harvest.
The research fellows add: “People can’t wait. A hungry child will be stunted in both their physical and cognitive development.”
“If people are already economically stressed, they won’t be able to invest in this year’s production, so even if the rains are good, the harvest might not be.”
WFP recently procured more than 33 000 metric tonnes (MT) of maize and 317MT of fortified corn soya cereal blend for 1.5 million people, but more is required.
Gwembere supports his family by working on other people’s farms. Meanwhile, his neighbour Martha Kalumbi stresses the need for a long-term solution.
She says: “Starvation may kill my children. We really need solar-powered irrigation equipment so we can grow food and cash crops on our own to sustain our livelihoods. It’s not possible to feed everyone with aid.”
Less than 90 minutes’ drive away, the outlook could not be more different.
Grandmother Sekanawo Mwanalira, 40, grows different crops in Nyambalo Village, which is surrounded by lush greenery.
“I was born and raised on this land. My parents and grandparents taught me farming to sustain ourselves,” she says.
The farmer remembers the heavy flooding of 1991, the drought that caused hunger in 2009 and the devastating rains induced by Cyclone Ana in 2022.
“Climate is changing and it’s impacting our lives,” she says.
In 2021, WFP and World Vision Malawi introduced a solar-powered irrigation project in Nyambalo Village. The four water tanks that dominate the skyline store water pumped from the ground.
“It has been a blessing,” says Mwanalira. “Since the project started, I’ve had enough food in my household—maize, leaf vegetables, tomatoes, beans and fruits. I even sell surplus vegetables to buy other foods such as fish and meat.
This year, when the Southern Region was hit by drought, Mwanalira irrigated her crops and harvested enough to feed her family.
“Every household in Nyambalo is benefiting from this project. If you walk around, you won’t find a malnourished child,” she says.
Nyambalo villagers plant trees, protect forests and harvest rainwater, tackling soil erosion in surrounding watersheds.
WFP operates 22 small-scale irrigation schemes in seven districts, covering 105 hectares that serve nearly 2 000 people.
They are among 531 000 participating in the UN agency’s resilience-building projects across Malawi.
WFP urgently needs $64.4 million for emergency assistance and $3.1 million for resilience-building efforts to continue in the country.
Mwanalira hopes the ripple effects will benefit young women in her rural locality.
“Many marry young because they lack care and support at home. Girls need protection and equal rights, including the right to education.”
Mwanalira is optimistic that it won’t be long before the improvements to her own situation are visible.
She states: “Today, I live in a house roofed with iron sheet, but the standalone kitchen is still grass-thatched. Next time you visit, you won’t see any grass on the roofs. You won’t even need to ask how I’ve benefitted.”
Can this tale of two villages have a happy ending for Thumpwa too? Despite being so close to each other, they are worlds apart.
“It’s the difference water makes,” says WFP’s Paul Turnbull. “One has irrigation, the other pines for it. It’s the very border of where there is funding and where there isn’t
