Hungry season arrives early for rural poor

In Malawi's drought-hit southern district of Bangwe, people begin queuing as early as 3.00 a.m. outside the depot of the state grain marketer Admarc for subsidised maize-meal. The demand is such, after the worst harvest in a decade, ADMARC has been forced to introduce rationing. "We are aware that ADMARC, depending on the maize supply in its depots, has been forced to ration sales to between five to 25 kg per person," said Evance Chavasuka of the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning System Network. William Chisego, 17, had been waiting since the night before to buy maize-meal for his family. He had walked some 25 km to the depot and joined a queue which by Tuesday morning numbered at least 500 people. "I have money to buy some more maize, but they say they will only give five kg - it will not last us long," he said, adding there were five adults in his household. Macy Godifely had also been camping outside the ADMARC compound for her ration of the staple food – the carbohydrate in nearly all meals in this region. "This will not even last a week for my family of four," she snapped. By mid-morning the crowd was getting restless, pressing up against the depot's gates. Security guards tried to maintain order by hitting out with their batons. There is desperation here. This is the fourth drought in a row to scorch southern Malawi, and the poor have hit rock bottom. They cannot afford the commercial price of around 30 kwacha (US 25 cents) a kilo for maize-meal, and even the 17 kwacha (US 14 cents) a kilo that ADMARC charges is too much for some. Earlier this week there was speculation in the local media that ADMARC, battling with limited supplies, was about to raise its prices. "We have also heard that but we don't know how much the hike is going to be," said Chavasuka. "Even 17 kwacha a kilo is beyond the means of many people - so we don't know how people will afford the new price - more people are going to starve." But at least the people in Bangwe, 25 km from Malawi's commercial capital, Blantyre, have ADMARC outlets. In the neighbouring Zomba district people have to buy their maize-meal at the commercial rate. "No one can afford to buy maize-meal at 30 kwacha per kilo in the commercial market here, so people are starving," said Sophie Panje, a nurse at the Nutrition Rehabilitation Unit (NRU) at the Catholic mission-run Pirimiti community hospital. The NRU is currently treating 10 children for hunger-related illnesses like kwashiorkor and marasmus. The unit, which receives supplies from the UN's World Food Programme (WFP), provides supplementary feeding to about 300 children every two weeks. "We are always admitting chronically malnourished children, but this year the numbers are already increasing even before the beginning of the lean season in December," noted Panje. The hospital's administrator, Sister Jospehine Gowelo, said the hunger she was seeing was much worse than the last three years, and she was being forced to turn people away everyday who were looking for food. The Pirimiti hospital, 60 km from Blantyre, covers 60 villages - a total of about 30,000 people. "In January, when we had some maize flour in our reserves, we would give our patients an extra supply to take back home to their families. But now we have nothing to give, so patients don't even stay for a day - as they prefer to go back home and suffer with their families," explained Gowelo. The hospital has also recorded an increase in the number of diarrhoea cases as a result of desperate people eating roots and plants not meant for human consumption, she added. Linele Manerd, herself gaunt and exhausted, was tending to her two-year-old grandson recovering from kwashiorkor when IRIN visited the NRU. In a normal year, Manerd and her family get by as subsistence farmers. This year the harvest failed, and two months before the beginning of the lean season, the household had run out of food. Although the rains began last week, signaling the time to plant, Manerd and many other farmers in the area cannot sow as they have no money and no seed, despite a government scheme to provide free seed and fertiliser. "The government has not begun any distribution programme here and people have not heard of the fertiliser coupons being distributed," said nurse Panje. The government, accused by the opposition of failing to provide seed and fertiliser on time last year, has insisted it was addressing the food crisis as best it can. R P Mwadiwa, permanent secretary in the ministry of agriculture, told IRIN there were plans to flood ADMARC outlets with 70,000 MT of maize by the middle of this month. The government has begun working with aid partners to provide food and assistance to 2.2 million people in the north, while WFP was feeding around 700,000 in the south, and aimed to reach two million people in seven districts at the peak of the lean season. However, a sharp increase in malnutrition rates and rapidly rising maize prices could push the number of vulnerable people in need of food aid up to five million, WFP has warned. In August the UN appealed for $88 million to respond to the hunger crisis in Malawi; so far, donors have contributed or pledged just over $15 million.