Food Security in Malawi

On the morning of our last day in Blantyre (June 25), we had our second meeting of our trip with staff members of the Churches Action for Relief and Development (CARD). CARD is affiliated with the Global Aids Interfaith Alliance (GAIA), working in the southern region of Malawi. The staff was a fount of information on a variety of issues relating to life in Malawi. While we were waiting for others to join us, we had a chance to pick the brains of these CARD staff members. I will write about a couple of the issues that we talked about in the next couple of blog entries.

My notes are a little sparse in places, so please bear with me. We were about 10 or 11 days into our trip at this point. At this juncture, I was mentally exhausted and very homesick so I was not journaling with the vigor and intensity that I was earlier in the trip.

The first item in my notes from that day falls under the broad issue of food security.


The context for writing about food security in Malawi is simple. There is not always enough food, especially when there has been a drought as there was a couple of years ago. Or when droughts are not an issue, excessive rains during the November to May rainy season can lead to excessive runoff and even floods.

Included among the discussion points were:

1. Is there enough food to sustain a family through a drought;
2. Nutritional value of the food;
3. Accessibility of the food, who gets the food, in a particular household; and
4. The right of children.

CARD does the following:

1. Responds to emergencies, i.e. something the people were not expecting such as drought, and floods.
2. Works with villagers on ways that their village can work towards being self-sustaining including: goat production, crop production, and water sanitation.

HIV/AIDS is an added pressure in the case when one income earner is lost due to illness or death.

I was interested to find out that something on the order of 40% of (family) harvest loss of is due to post-harvest infestation in the form of mice and insects. Chemicals are utilized, although I suspect that this come at an added cost that might be out of the reach of many families. A number of natural remedies are used. Ground up leaves from a certain trees or ashes are mixed with the maize to ward off weevils. This seems to work. Ashes are also mixed in with the potato crop to prevent weevil infestation.

One model for rodent control that we discussed could come through communal grain banks. Here individuals come together as a group and construct a brick structure – bricks can be made by hand – with rodent guards. The idea is that the individuals in the group will come up with an agreement on storing and then using grains and other groups. I got the impression that this model is not yet widely used, if at all. But it is an interesting one. And if the bricks can be made by hand and then cured by fire – to stand up through the rainy season, I think that this could be a very cost-effective solution for rodent control.