ReliefWeb

SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS

• The food security situation in Malawi is beginning to deteriorate in Round 26 of data collection (mid- June – mid-July 2022) as observed by a decrease in the proportion of households having acceptable food consumption compared to the previous round.

• The proportions of households who are employing the most severe consumption-based coping strategies and emergency livelihood coping strategies have increased compared to the previous round, indicating that households are beginning to apply adverse coping strategies in order to attain good food consumption.

• Households’ access to markets in this round is relatively lower among households in the Southern region compared to households in the Central and Northern regions partly indicating the decreased sales at the markets of their crop harvests due to poor production.

BACKGROUND

The country experienced natural hazards during the 2021/2022 growing season which caused poor production. For instance, the late onset of planting rains, prolonged dry spells, the occurrence of tropical storms and cyclones, early cessation of rains, and fall army-worm infestations negatively affected agriculture production. Additionally, limited access to farm inputs due to increased prices also affected crop production. Subsequently, maize production has decreased by 19 percent compared to the previous growing season.

The 25 percent devaluation of the Malawi Kwacha against the major foreign currencies by the Government on 26th May 2022 and the soaring inflation rate have all led to increased prices of essential food and non-food commodities. For instance, maize prices increased by 36 percent between the first week of June and the first week of July 2022 (the period for this reporting), an observation that is unusual for the harvesting period. The high food inflation is limiting food access for households that did not produce enough food to sustain their own consumption needs. This is of particular concern as most households are net buyers of food and rely on the markets to access their daily food needs.

During the current reporting period (mid- June to mid-July), Malawi continued to experience low numbers of COVID-19 new cases. As of the 4th of July 2022 (the last day of this round of data collection), the Malawi Ministry of Health had registered 24 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours and no deaths. Cumulatively, Malawi had recorded 86,600 cases including 2,646 deaths with a case fatality rate of 3.06%.