About 4 million people in Malawi are facing acute food insecurity, and the situation may persist until March 2026, according to government figures.

The southeastern African nation — one of the world's poorest — has started enforcing maize export restrictions to protect stocks of the staple grain, Malawi's Trade Ministry announced on Thursday.

Malawian President Peter Mutharika declared a state of disaster in late October, while assuring the nation that no citizen would die of hunger under his watch.

Mutharika, who was sworn in as president just weeks earlier, appealed to the international community to invest in Malawi, saying it needed partnerships, not handouts.

"Our nation is in crisis," Mutharika said at his inauguration, adding that there was "no food." 

"We will fix this country," the 85-year-old added. "I don't promise you milk and honey, but hard work."

Poverty deepens Malawi's hunger crisis

Around 75% of Malawians live below the World Bank's poverty line of $3 a day. Around half the population does not get the minimum number of calories needed for adequate nutrition, according to the bank's estimates. 

Bertha Bangara-Chikadza, president of the ECAMA, says while Malawi has witnessed a perennial food crisis, this year's hunger crisis is more severe.

"They [families] are even cutting on nutrition, and even the quality of the food they're taking is also not good. Some families are even selling some of their assets just to survive," Bangara-Chikadza told DW.

Malawi's worst crisis was recorded in 2002. It affected more than 75% of the population, and more than 500 people either starved to death or died from hunger-related illnesses.

A persistent problem with no solution

"Over the past 10 years ... maybe up to five or six states of disasters [have] been declared," Tamani Nkhono-Mvula, an agricultural policy expert, told DW.

Bangara-Chikadza, who is also an economics lecturer at the University of Malawi, says the causes of the persistent problem vary.

She told DW that Malawi's high dependence on maize production and overreliance on rainfed agriculture make the country highly susceptible to drought and other natural disasters.

Another cause of the food crisis is artificial, Bangara-Chikadza said, pointing out that farmers export their yields to neighboring countries where the purchasing price is higher.

"We've seen even this year that some Malawians who had the maize, they were exporting it outside the country because the national food reserve agency was not buying at competitive prices," Bangara-Chikadza said. 

Meanwhile, the World Food Programme (WFP)has attributed Malawi's food crisis to climate shocks — including dry spells and cyclones. 

Oliver Kirui, a research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), says Malawi's persistent food shortage pattern is a structural challenge that requires deliberate solutions.

"Despite having large lands — estimated between 4 and 5 million hectares of arable land — there is low irrigation coverage, there is limited access to input and there is weak market that keeps the yields very low and the diets quite undiversified," he told DW.

Where are the solutions?

With the highest global per capita consumption of maize, Malawi has treated the crop as a "high value" one.

Joachim De Weerdt, who heads the IFPRI's Malawi country office, says that this exacerbates the hunger situation when there are food shortages.

"To prevent these more fundamental things from happening, there's going to have to be a serious investment in a number of things," De Weerdt told DW.

"In terms of making sure that maize is simply not a very high value crop," he said. "If you grow maize on half a hectare of land, that might get you calories, but it doesn't generate a lot of income, so moving to much more high value crops is one avenue." 

Kirui suggested diversifying Malawi's food production system to include irrigation systems that can support food production during natural occurrences like drought.

Experts like Dr. Tamani Nkhono-Mvula, also worry that despite the persistent nature of the crisis, these solutions are hard to implement.

"The problem has been making sure the resources are available because every year whenever there is a disaster, it seems the government is caught unaware," he said.

An old problem for a new government

"To be fair on the government, they have come in and inherited the problem," De Weerdt noted.

In addition to enforcing maize export restrictions under a 2018 law, the Malawian government said it is seeking assistance through maize imports from neighboring Zambia to provide short-term relief for households that cannot afford high food prices.

It also called for international assistance to deal with the imminent threat — however, some experts have suggested the administration should invest in sustainable food systems to eradicate the problem.

"External assistance is critical in [a] crisis like this one, but it is not sustainable as a long-term strategy," Kirui told DW. 

"So humanitarian aid could help bridge the food gap, yet Malawi needs to invest more in predictable national safety nets." 

Edited by: Keith Walker