An Ethiopian news and opinion journal, Ethiopian Review, has published an analysis of conditions in one of the most disadvantaged countries in the world, Malawi. The Review looks at two areas: food security and vulnerability, the latter of which is an umbrella term for a number of issues including poverty and health amongst others.
Malawi is an African nation bordered by Mozambique, Zambia and the United Republic of Tanzania. A census in 2008 recorded the population as approximately 13 million people, a number of whom are now struggling to survive in desperate living conditions. As the report explains, this is mainly due to the failure of crops in 2001/2002 and to some extent in 2005/06, which left Malawi’s inhabitants facing many serious problems relating to famine, nutrition and health.
The Ethiopian Review highlights the other issues affecting food security in Malawi:
“chronic poverty, low agricultural productivity, poor infrastructure, a limited amount of arable land, high costs of agricultural inputs and recurrent weather shocks.”
However desperate the situation seemed in the past, there are small signs of positive change for Malawi. The last three growing seasons have generated a surplus of maize, and official estimates in 2009 showed that the combination of good rainfall, government subsidy programmes and more affordable seeds and fertiliser should be enough to increase food production.
