Food Security Framework | Hazards

• Drought/dry spells are the key hazards affecting most rural households, and these have affected various parts of the country in the past five years to varying degrees, with the worst ones in 2002 and 2005 affecting large areas of the country. Because of the frequency of these events, the resilience of the people has been greatly eroded, perpetually rendering them vulnerable even to the slightest shocks. In the past it used to be predictable that droughts would affect the southern districts of Nsanje and Chikwawa, but in the most recent past localized droughts are occurring at random without any predictable pattern.
Floods along the lakeshore areas and along major rivers have become a frequent occurrence with devastating consequences on agricultural production. These incidents are frequent due to increased land degradation as people cultivate in marginal and/or fragile lands and along river banks. Despite being an agricultural-based economy with a great proportion of the people living off the land, the majority of rural people actually are net purchasers of the main staple in the later part of any consumption period. This means that any adverse economic developments that result in steep price increases put them at risk of food insecurity as they cannot afford to buy enough at high prices with the low incomes. Government is from time to time intervening on behalf of the farmers to ask buyers of the major cash crops (tobacco and cotton) to offer better prices that reflect a reasonable return for the producers.