Food Security Monitoring Report Malawi June 2005 Areas at Risk: April 2005 – March 2006 Based on the price of maize increasing year-on-year at a rate equal to the present inflation rate (Scenario 1). VAC Chitipa Karonga MALAWI Vulnerability Assessment Committee Rumphi Malawi Vulnerability L A Assessment K Nkhata Bay Committee E Mzimba M A Legend L In collaboration with Country A W Districts Nkhotakota I Lakes Kasungu The SADC-FANR Parks Ntchisi Cities Regional Dowa Vulnerability Mchinji Salima Assessment Lilongwe Dedza Committee Mangochi LAKE MALOMBE LAKE Ntcheu CHIUTA Machinga Balaka Missing Food Entitlements VAC LAKE (% Min Energy Requirements, CHILWA Zomba Per Capita) Mwanza >30% Blantyre Phalombe Chiradzulu SADC FANR 21-30% Vulnerability 11-20% Mulanje Thyolo Assessment Committee 1-10% Chikwawa Not At Significant Risk Nsanje Government of the World Food Programme Republic of Malawi Acknowledgements The Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee (MVAC) would like to thank the following participants and their organisations, who contributed either directly or indirectly to researching, analysing, writing up and presenting the information in this report: • Tesfai Ghermazien (Food and Agriculture • Walusungu Kayira (Ministry of Economic Planning Organization) and Development) • Caesar Kachale (Food and Agriculture • Moses Kachale (Ministry of Economic Planning Organization) and Development) • Susanne Wiebe (United Nations Development • Martha Khungwa (Ministry of Economic Planning Programme) and Development) • Masozi Kachale (World Food Programme) • Charles Rethman (Ministry of Economic Planning and Development/Save the Children US) • Sarah Kaphamtengo (World Food Programme) • Fiskani Nkana (Ministry of Agriculture) • Mervyn Chiumia (World Food Programme) • Pepani Bakali (Ministry of Agriculture) • Duncan Ndhlovu (World Food Programme) • Kettie Msukwa (Ministry of Finance) • Smart Masamba (Action Against Hunger) • Philemon Siwinda (National Statistics Office) • Commodious Nyirenda (Action Against Hunger) • Simon Mulungu (Department of Poverty and • Roslyn Harper (Concern Worldwide) Disaster Management Affairs) • Vincent Gondwe (Concern Worldwide) • Gift Mafuleka (Department of Poverty and Disaster • Norias Kayira (Catholic Relief Services) Management Affairs) • James Bwirani (Oxfam) • Sam Chimwaza (FEWS-NET) • Peace Mthekana (Save US) • Evance Chapasuka (FEWS-NET) In addition, the following agencies assisted the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee by providing the data that much of this analysis is based upon: • The National Statistics Office • The Ministry of Agriculture • The Department of Poverty and Disaster Management Affairs • The Ministry of Health • Action Against Hunger • World Food Programme • Food and Agriculture Organization (Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission) • FEWS-NET • SADC Regional Remote Sensing Unit • National Meteorological Centre The Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee thanks all partners who have generously contributed funding towards this report: DFID, the European Union, World Food Programme and FEWS-NET. This document contains the views and findings of the MVAC but does not necessarily reflect the views of the Government of Malawi, any single member of the MVAC or any of the donors or funding agencies. Malawi VAC Food Security Monitoring Report 2 June 2005 Inside Cover Executive Summary The Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee (MVAC) is a multi-agency body that studies the relationships between socio-economic conditions and people’s livelihoods to gain a better understanding of where, why and for how long people are vulnerable. One of the activities associated with this is to conduct regular monitoring assessments which are aimed at obtaining an early warning forecast for vulnerability to food insecurity in Malawi for the remainder of the agricultural consumption year (April to March). Malawians continue to be unacceptably vulnerable to food insecurity, much of it chronic and much of it attributed to the high levels of poverty in the country. This year, a short but critical failure in the summer rains, coupled with a lack of inputs during the important planting and growing period, led to the lowest cereal production since 1994. The MVAC carried out a field exercise in April, which looked at the impact of this poor harvest and the prevailing economic conditions on poor households, using a modelling technique that is built on a ‘baseline’ description of how households normally survive and make their ends meet. There are two basic questions being asked in a year of crop shortages. The first question is, “how much food is to be imported?” The answer to this lies in a food balance sheet, as the question centres around food availability. However, food in the country does not necessarily automatically translate into food at home or in bellies. People may be so poor that they are unable to secure food offered up in the markets. In this case, the second question that arises is, “what is the humanitarian need?” This report is largely concerned with answering this question1. The MVAC has developed a series of livelihood profiles that describe how households go about getting their primary food requirements; these profiles are called baselines and they depict the sources of food and income, as well as the expenditure patterns that households incur to survive. When these baselines are combined with monitoring information that describes changes in terms of these elements, the result can be put in food terms. In other words, it is possible to describe how households’ access to food changes with changes in important components of their livelihoods, such as food crop production, cash crop production, ganyu availability and payment rates or staple prices. These livelihood profiles are applicable to carefully constructed livelihood zones (spatial areas of reasonably homogenous livelihood systems), as well as the different wealth groups within each zone. The profiles therefore differentiate households geographically and by the resources they command. In April, MVAC members conducted a rapid survey (not sampled) of all of the areas identified as having had problems during the preceding season. Most of these were in the south of the country. The exercise was really conducted to verify the secondary data sources (such as production estimates or price changes) and elaborate on some others. Results and data were then combined and used to project scenarios based on assumptions that are built on the experience of previous years. The MVAC recognises that many factors contribute to vulnerability, Box 1: What are ‘Missing Food including HIV/AIDS, chronic and deep poverty and gender issues. Entitlements’? However, the focus was kept on a ‘problem specification’ defined by the cropping season because the chief interest was in deciding how The term ‘missing food entitlement’ is used this season’s output affects short-term food security; other, longer- rather than ‘deficit’ because the latter term is term issues will be investigated later. usually associated with the shortfall in production only. The shortfall in production Since it is extremely difficult to predict the future maize price2, two actually tells us how much food needs to be possible scenarios were chosen to describe this variable. Scenario 1 imported in order to meet local average consumption but it does not tell us whether assumes that the maize price during the purchasing period people will be able to get their hands on that (December to March) will rise to a level that reflects previous years food. The missing food entitlement is the with an adjustment made according to the current rate of inflation sum of all the food that is missing at while scenario 2 assumes that maize is landed in Blantyre at household level, after households have $220/MT and then sold at cost parity, after adding storage and exhausted all the options they have for distribution charges as well as a small contingency. obtaining it. It therefore represents the total missing calories from people’s intake or In each affected part of a livelihood zone, the MVAC calculates a consumption, rather than from their missing food entitlement3 (see Box 1), which is expressed as a production. 1 It must be noted that even in a good production year when there is an overall national surplus, some people may still not be able to access sufficient food and may therefore require humanitarian assistance. 2 A number of factors influence the maize price, many of which are equally difficult to predict 3 For simplicity, this analysis concentrates on one nutrient only: food energy. All food energy sources are included in the analysis, though, including foodstuffs such as dairy, meat (for the lucky few that have it), root crops and fruits such as mangoes and bananas, Malawi VAC Food Security Monitoring Report 3 June 2005 Executive Summary percentage of the minimum per capita average energy requirement, or a percentage of 2100 kcal per person per day. Figure 1 shows the geographical areas as classified by the MVAC in terms of entitlement risk. This information can be converted into a single food commodity4 and summed over the population who are at risk of missing this entitlement. If maize is chosen as the commodity, the result is a total maize equivalent of the missing food entitlement. The maize equivalent of the missing food entitlement is an approximation of the total amount of cereal (maize) that is needed to ensure that households are able to meet their minimum food energy requirements. Table