Food crisis worsens in Malawi

A Malawian woman tried to sell some of her five children on February 23, so that she could afford to feed the others. One of her children has already died of malnutrition as the country's food crisis deepens.

Margaret Phiri lives with her children, ages two to12, in the central district of Kasungu where she and her husband were labour tenants on a tobacco estate. Her philandering husband abandoned her and the children three years ago, however, after she confronted him about his affairs with other women. Since then, she has worked herself to a near standstill trying to sustain her family.

But when the food crisis struck, Phiri could do no more. "One of my children died recently because we don't have enough food," she explains. Phiri wants to return to her home village, Kamenya, on the outskirts of the capital, Lilongwe. To raise money for transport and food, she tried to sell three of the children in Kasungu on February 23.

"The children will starve to death if I keep them," she says. "They stand a better chance of surviving with other people." Social workers immediately intervened, however, and offered her US$15 to get some food and travel to her home village.

Justin Malewezi, Malawi Vice President, told journalists recently that seven million people, or 70 percent of the country's population of 10 million, have been hit by the crisis that has claimed over 70 lives since November of last year. Malewezi said the country needed at least US$21.6 million to deal with the crisis adequately and was seeking immediate assistance in procurement, transport, and logistic capacity.

Malawi has so far received 70,000 metric tonnes of maize imports from South Africa and is waiting for 100,000 more to arrive in March. Thirty thousand metric tonnes have also been imported from Tanzania.

The food crisis follows severe flooding during the last growing season, which led to low yields. Reports from the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) show that Malawi has a maize shortfall of 125,000 tonnes and a total cereal deficit of 155,000 tonnes for the current marketing year. People are being forced to eat maize husks, which go for a much lower price than the staple maize.

President Bakili Muluzi declared a national disaster on February 27, and made an urgent appeal for food aid as officials warned that 70 percent of the country's population were at risk of starvation. He said that food shortages had reached critical proportions, especially in rural areas.

The World Food Programme (WFP) also admits that the food shortage situation in Malawi has reached crisis proportions. "The reports are really bad," WFP Country Director Adama Diop-Faye said. "The only problem is you can't prove people died from hunger, but I'm sure the deaths we're recording are hunger-related in one way or another." She said at some distribution sites, people had not eaten for days and consumed WFP's high-protein corn-soya blend rations as soon as they were distributed.

She added that anecdotal evidence suggested there are large numbers of kwashiorkor (extreme malnutrition) cases. Theft of food rations was also a concern for hungry villagers, who have begun to band together for protection at the distribution points.

The government has said it needs an estimated US$21.6 million to avoid disaster, but has secured only US$1.6 million. As an immediate response, WFP has in-country stocks of 798 metric tonnes of maize to feed 10,000 targeted households in 10 districts.

But Diop-Faye acknowledged that this was only one third of what was actually needed. In response to the crisis, WFP is now buying 1,500 metric tonnes of maize on the local market - at highly inflated prices. An additional eight districts will be covered, and an estimated total of 200,000 people fed. "Even with that intervention we are not solving the problem because more people are suffering from food shortages each day," Diop-Faye said.

Malawi's crisis is caused by a combination of several factors, the WFP Country Director said. Flooding in early 2001 led to food shortages in several parts of the country, especially in the densely populated south. Donor cutbacks in support of a farm input assistance programme that provided seeds and fertiliser to vulnerable families, and the government's decision to sell-off some of its national food reserve, also worsened the current situation.

Prices for the staple maize have skyrocketed by as much as 400 percent - well beyond the means of most Malawians. Meanwhile, although the government has banned the sale of green maize, farmers are harvesting early, both prevent crop thefts and to make some income.

But early harvesting, combined with destructive rains at the beginning of the year in 15 of Malawi's 27 districts, means that another poor agricultural season is in store for Malawi. The maize harvest, which begins in April, was expected to come in at 1.9 million metric tonnes. But production has now been reassessed to 1.5 million metric tonnes, while Malawi's national demand is 2.2 million metric tonnes. "Donors should look beyond this current crisis as it is going to be worse next year," warned Diop-Faye.

Meanwhile, the food crisis and current rainy season have increased cholera cases as hungry and desperate people are forced to eat anything available. At least 175 Malawians have died of cholera, which has also affected over 10,000 people. But health authorities say the figure could be much worse.

Jonathan Nkhoma, Chief Health Education Officer in the Ministry of Health, said the interim figures are based on a survey of 16 of the country's 27 districts. Nkhoma said the worst hit district is the southern resort district of Mangochi. "The data from the rest of the country is yet to be tabulated because the current rains are making most parts inaccessible," he said. He added: "There are some districts like (the central district of) Salima that were only struck recently." Health authorities are blaming the current food crisis for the dramatic increase in cholera cases.

Sister Charlotte, who is in charge of a special feeding unit at Malawi's largest referral hospital, Queen Elizabeth Central in the commercial capital of Blantyre, said in an interview that poor residents were scavenging for anything edible, thereby making themselves susceptible to diarrhoeal diseases such as cholera. "Because they are often tired, they don't bother to wash the leaves and tubers properly," she said.

A team of journalists visited four districts in the southern and central regions of the country. What they heard were desperate tales of people eating strange leaves and digging up tubers they would not normally eat. A Chief Dzombe in the central district of Kasungu said that after traditional fruits such as mangoes and apples ran out, his subjects set about into the bushes to seek whatever was edible, including leaves and tubers, to eat. "Sometimes they have open bowels because of these leaves and tubers but what can they do when there is no maize?" he said, in apparent reference to the country's staple food.

In Chief Dzombe's small village of 80 people, journalists encountered five cases of cholera. Health authorities have set up special tents to quarantine cholera patients in most towns and district centres.