FOOD AND NUTRITION SECURITY POLICY

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FOOD AND NUTRITION SECURITY POLICY

• The Profile of Food and Nutrition
• Security

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HIGHLIGHTS OF THE PROFILE OF FOOD NUTRITION
SECURITY

• Nutritional Status
• National food balance
• Production
• Consumption
• Stability
• Cross-cutting issues

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Nutritional status

• Ø     Chronic and acute malnutrition
•    Micronutrient malnutrition
• Mortality trends

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Chronic and acute malnutrition
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Prevalence of chronic energy deficiency (CED
BMIlt18.5)
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Micronutrient Malnutrition - 2001
Only 36 of households consume adequately iodised
salt (?25 ppm)
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Mortality Trends
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National food balance

• 1961- 1995 food deficit in 19 out of 34 years
• 1995- 2003 food deficit in 5 out of 8 years
• In 2004, there is a high likelihood of food
  deficit in the southern region

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Domestic Production

• Ø Food production index
• Maize production trend
• Estate and smallholder agriculture
• Agriculture as of recurrent
• expenditure
• Constraints to agricultural
• production

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Constraints to agriculture production

• Small landholdings lt 0.5 ha
• Low soil fertility
• Dependence on rain fed agriculture
• Limited access to agriculture inputs
• Limited access to credit
• Labour shortages on own farm due to ganyu
• Declining land and labour productivity due to
• Population pressure
• HIV/AIDS
• High input costs

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Constraints to agriculture production continued

• Maize pricing
• 1995/96 price band introduced
• Price band abolished in 2001/02
• Government still controlling maize price
  currently at K10/kg
• Consequences
• Maize flows out due to the artificially low at
  MK10/kg
• No incentive for farmers to produce more maize
  than they need.
• No incentive for estates to grow maize
• Private traders cannot plan for imports

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Input/output marketing

• Output marketing liberalized maize and tobacco
  exports controlled.
• Imports of raw agricultural products subject to
  duty-free entry.
• Malawi remains a net food importer
• Private sector participation in import and export
  trade in food is liberalized and active
• Export and Import bans effected.

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Consumption

• Declining income levels
• Inequalities in consumption
• Dietary patterns

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Inequalities in consumption

• 2/3 of population unable to meet the minimum
  energy requirements (i.e.,2200 Kilocalorie)
• 64 of population below poverty line
• 65 of rural population below poverty line
• The poorest 20 consume 6 of total national
  consumption
• The richest 10 consume 32

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type of safety net programes recommended for
Malawi

• Expanded Public works programmes
• Targeted inputs program
• Targeted nutrition programs
• Direct voucher transfer to disadvantaged groups
• Are these safety nets effective for enhancing
  food security
• Are they useful for development or how about
  during disasters??

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Challenges for implementation of safety nets

• identification of appropriate type of safety nets
  
• targeting of the safety nets to the vulnerable
  groups
• financial, human and institutional capacity to
  implement
• effective monitoring systems to ensure effective
  delivery
• phasing out strategy

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Dietary patterns

• General diet BULKY with LOW meal frequency
• Infant and young child feeding practices (98
  breastfeeding, 72 initiated within 1 hour BUT
  EBF only 63 (2000) up from 3 1992.
• Complementary food plain porridge mostly cereal
  based (about 80), BULKY with low frequency eg.
• lt4 months 0.3
• 4-5 months 1.4
• 6-9 months 1.5
• Source MDHS, 2000

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Stability

• Disasters and emergencies
• Seasonality of food production
• Food and nutrition security information systems

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Occurrence and impact of disasters in Malawi

• Floods and drought, most frequent natural
  disasters in Malawi
• 1991/92 drought National maize production
  fell by nearly 60 to 657,000 MT
• In 2001, floods occurred in 13 districts,
  contributed to about 32 drop in maize output
• 2002/2003-food crisis the government spent about
  US80 million to import maize
• WFP has spent gtUS250 million on food aid for
  Malawi in the past 25 years due to disasters

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Tools for disaster management

• Disaster Preparedness and Relief Act, 1991.
  Provisions of the act include establishment of
• Office of the Commissioner capacity limited
• National Disaster Preparedness and Relief
  Committee (NDPRC)
• A disaster fund not yet established/ not
  budgeted for
• Disaster management plan still in draft since
  1997

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Tools for disaster management continued

• Strategic grain reserve (SGR) established in
  1981 with capacity of 180,000 tones
• objectives and uses of the SGR not well defined
• management and financing of the SGR NFRA
  problematic
• size of the SGR (physical stocks or financial
  resources)
• High cost of maintaining physical stocks

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Current data/information domains relevant to FSN

• Agricultural statistics (crop production
  estimates, livestock census, input output market
  prices, food supply/demand)
• Health and nutrition information (nutrition
  indicators, health statistics)
• Demographic and health statistics
• Poverty statistics
• Population statistics
• Socio-economic information (trade statistics,
  exchange rates, inflation)
• Natural resources information (land, water,
  meteorology, environmental factors)

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Major challenges on FSNIS

• Unavailability of accurate timely and up-to-date
  data and information
• Non-existence of a well structured and
  
  
  coordinated food security and nutrition
  information system.
• Inadequate analytical capacity to provide
  accurate and timely information
• Inadequate access by most users (e.g. private
  sector and NGOs)

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Cross-cutting issues

• Gender imbalances
• Environment
• HIV/AIDS pandemic
• National adult prevalence (15 49) 14.4
• Urban 23.0
• Rural 12.4
• Number of infected children (0 14) 70,000
• 60,000 80,000
• No. infected adults over 50 years of age
  60,000
• Total HIV population 900,000