Over 800,000 Malawians face food shortages this year because of their distance from parts of the country which enjoyed bumper harvests, the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) said today.
"At household level, there will be a missing food entitlement of 57,300 (metric tonnes) or cash equivalent of $14 million for about 833,000 food insecure people ...," WFP said in a statement.
It added that if maize prices continued to rise, it might put the staple out of reach of another 147,800 people. The southern African nation recorded maize production at 2.61 million tonnes during the 2005/06 growing season, roughly 18 per cent above the national requirement of 2.2 million tonnes.
Good rains and a successful fertiliser and maize subsidy boosted this year's yields. Last year Malawi experienced its worst maize harvest since 1992, producing just 1.25 million tonnes, leaving nearly half its 12 million people vulnerable. Finance Minister Goodall Gondwe said the government has already disbursed $7 million to buy 33,000 tonnes locally.
"This year's budget includes an allocation of US$15 million to purchase maize to meet the shortfalls because not every district received good rains. Half of that amount has already been released," he said.
He however would not say whether Malawi will import the remainder. Zambian authorities this week said Malawi was among five countries in the region seeking to buy 50,000 tonnes of white maize from that country's food reserve agency