Malawi government plans to buy food used as livestock feed for its people as food crisis takes desperate turn

Malawi is so desperate for food to stave off a hunger crisis that the government may buy a type of corn that the country mainly uses as livestock feed.

In the southern African nation, millions eat a porridge of ground white corn as a daily meal, but after the worst drought in decades there aren’t enough supplies to feed everyone. The government wants to import 10 times more corn than usual and is ready to buy grain from Europe, where the yellow variety is mainly produced.

The rare decision – because that part of Africa prefers using yellow corn to feed animals – comes as the nation’s harvest is set to be 40 per cent smaller than two years ago. An El Nino weather pattern obliterated crops from South Africa to Ethiopia, leaving nearby countries fighting for supplies. Malawi has declared a state of disaster and about 50 million people face hunger in eastern and southern Africa, the United Nation’s humanitarian affairs agency said.

Malawi is not accustomed to this situation, as over the past decade it has acted as a surplus exporter,” said Edward George, head of soft commodities research at Lome, Togo-based lender Ecobank Transnational. “Given the shortfall in maize production in Zimbabwe and Zambia, Malawi will need to source the maize from the global market,” he said, using another term for corn.

Malawi will struggle to find the 1 million metric tonnes of white corn it’s seeking for its 17 million people, said Wandile Sihlobo, head economist at the Agricultural Business Chamber in South Africa. That’s partly because South Africa is boosting imports and Zambia has suspended exports until September.

With Malawi facing a second year of falling output, corn prices jumped 67 per cent in the past year and reached a record 241 kwacha per kilogram (US$8.90 a bushel) in February. Because of the crisis, the government is in talks with Ukraine, Brazil and Mexico to source grain and is considering an exception to a ban on allowing genetically modified supplies, Agriculture Minister George Chaponda said.