Written By: Lloyd M’bwana
The country’s agricultural bodies have vehemently requested the Malawi government to make maize as a protected crop in a bid to contain private traders of reaping the general public.
The request comes amid reports that Malawi is in short supply of maize which is the country’s staple food as over 2.9 million people are said to be starving.
With the latest report from Civil Society Agriculture Network (CISANET), Oxfam and Cadecom which was released over the weekend shows that for five districts sampled including Chitipa, Kasungu, Machinga, Balaka and Mulanje only 30% of their markets were found selling maize while the rest were run out of stock.
This is despite Malawi government claims that additional 10,000 metric tons of maize stock was procured last month from Zambia.
Even random interviews The Maravi Post conducted last week and Monday this week in selected markets in the capital Lilongwe such as Area 25, Kawale, Mchenzi, Likuni vindicated similar fears that hunger was biting hard as starved families including women were seen in long queues and even spending nights at Admarc deports in searching for maize.
In the report titled, “Hunger bites, a case of maize availability in Admarc markets in Malawi”, the three agricultural bodies (Cisanet, Cadecom and Oxfam) discovered that the hunger crisis has brought negative social impact on women and girls who spend nights at Admarc markets.
“CISANET and Oxfam staff while in the field for their normal duties had also observed similar trends of food insecurity. The situation had many implications on vulnerable groups. For example, it could breed sexual and other forms of violence against women, girls and other vulnerable groups, as they try to access the maize. Further, speculations were that maize scarcity in the ADMARC markets, was due to bulk buying by private traders, (and it was alleged that they usually purchase it through non-transparent means, by conniving with some ADMARC workers/authorities) and eventually sell it to ordinary poor citizens at exorbitant prices.
“The unavailability of maize in ADMARC markets is a violation of people’s right to access food, and the reported conditions people go through to access the maize, robs them of their dignity. In view of this CISANET and Oxfam in Malawi, commissioned this study to critically analyse the maize unavailability in ADMARC markets, and
Come up with evidence to inform dialogue with government, in addressing the situation. During the rapid assessment, 20 markets were visited in the five sampled districts of Chitipa, Kasungu, Machinga, Balaka and Mulanje. Only 30% of the markets visited were found selling maize which had arrived the previous day. In most cases, all was being sold within a day. The rest of the markets had run out of stock. Of the markets that had maize being sold, 33% were in the hard to reach areas, as opposed to 67% in the easy to reach areas”, reads the report in part.
The Maravi Post caught up with Tamani-Nkhono Mvula, Cisanet Executive Director on the prospects of making sure that maize was available to the people, who urged government to put deliberate policy and laws to regulate the essential commodity from being missed used by misguided private traders.
Nkhono-Mvula argued that if maize was declared as a protected crop some legal provisions were to be made available regulating its buying and selling power hence containing its availability.
“Although, World Bank does not allow declaring such a crop as a protected one, negotiations through our sister body Oxfam, are underway that later in the future that maize should be a legalized commodity as it’s a staple food which needs to be controlled from misguided private traders.
“Apart from that other immediate recommendations are that government should declare state of disaster in selected parts of the country, especially in the southern region (in particular, the Lower Shire and other districts heavily affected by the dry spells), lifting up import bans on food related products, release whatever maize they have in strategic grain reserves (SGR), as a temporarily measure while urgently planning for restocking of the SGRs, allocate additional funding towards maize procurement, consider buying maize from the private traders, locally as a temporal measure while capacitating ADMARC to timely buy maize from farmers”, recommends Nkhono-Mvula.
Meanwhile Admarc Chief Executive Officer Foster Mulumbe has assure the general public that his organization has enough maize stocks till April this year which other quarters of the society have disputed the claims regarding to short supply of the commodity in Admarc selling points across the nation.
