Malawi is facing a food crisis as the southern Africa region wrestles with drought and high temperatures. Due to record high winter temperatures hitting southern Africa during planting season, Malawi’s corn production fell by 12 percent in April leaving the country short of 1 million tonnes of grain during its worst food crisis in a decade, The East African said.
Malawi, which declared a state of emergency, sought 1.2 million tonnes of corn from Kenya, but was rejected. Kenya said it has just 10 million bags of maize or enough to last three months, The East African reported. In 2010, Malawi sent Kenya corn during a severe 2010 food shortage that saw food prices hit record highs. Kenya usually depends on Malawi and Zambia for non-GMO white corn, a staple grain in the region.
A spring assessment from Malawi’s Ministry of Finance found that nearly 39 percent of Malawi’s population, or about 6.5 million people, will be most vulnerable and it would need humanitarian assistance amounting to 493,000 tonnes of corn. But it will need even more of the staple grain to meet all its needs. Corn prices in Malawi were 60 percent above the three-year average and up to 175 percent higher in some markets in the south, the UN World Food Program reported in February.