Fighting in the center of the country has displaced civilians and hampered the distribution of aid supplies to affected districts, not only in Mozambique but in neighboring Malawi as well. The food crisis could not have come at a worse time for Mozambique, which has seen a resurgence of the civil war that formally ended in 1992. However, when SETSAN made a further assessment in March, it revised the number dramatically upwards, to 1.5 million, spread across seven provinces. A survey conducted in December found that 167,000 people were in need of food assistance, mainly in the three southernmost provinces. In Mozambique, the scale of the emergency was unclear for several months because of doubts about the accuracy of data collected by the agency responsible for making on-the-ground assessments, the Technical Secretariat for Food Security and Nutrition (SETSAN). Malawi only declared a national disaster in April, while Mozambique has yet to formally issue one at all so far the only official signal of the crisis has come from its disaster relief agency, which issued a вЂњred alert,вЂќ also in April. International donors have been sounding the alarm over the situation in southern Africa since the end of 2015, but the host governments that must lead any emergency response effort have been slower to amplify those messages. Villagers tell us it is becoming increasingly difficult to find drinking water for themselves and their cattle and say they are foraging for leaves and roots to supplement their meager diets. The COSACA representative in charge of the distribution process urges recipients to вЂњEat enough to live, not to fill your tummies.вЂќ This is the last month that the program will operate in its current form, and the funding outlook is uncertain. But rapidly rising inflation means that they donвЂ™t come close to meeting the dietary needs of even the smallest family. The coupons can be exchanged for essential food items-corn flour, rice, and cooking oil-sold by visiting traders. The vouchers, worth $40, are given to the heads of each eligible family once a month. We accompany a team from COSACA, a consortium of four international nongovernmental organizations that is distributing food vouchers to 10,000 families across four districts. Many have experienced total crop failure, have drawn down their food reserves, and are already relying on emergency assistance. For the ordinary farmer, the situation is even worse. The water level is too low to feed the irrigation channels that nourish the nearby sugar cane plantations. We cross the river on our way to Mabalane District in Gaza, one of the hardest hit of MozambiqueвЂ™s 10 provinces. In neighboring Mozambique, the вЂњgreat grey-green, greasyвЂќ Limpopo River immortalized by Rudyard Kipling looks far less imposing this year. When I ask Dorothy how she will cope, there is a long pause before she answers: вЂњIt will be hard this year to take care of everyone.вЂќ The coming lean season looks like the toughest yet for communities knocked back by successive years of drought and flooding. The climate allows for only one harvest a year, and this seasonвЂ™s paltry returns were gathered only a few weeks ago. In this country of farmers who rely almost entirely on rain-fed agriculture, there is no second chance. The rains started late and ended early in this part of south-central Malawi. She tells us that in an average season her sorghum harvest would yield four or five 50-kilogram bags, but this year she has less than one bag to show for her efforts. Her other crops have fared little better. The immediate cause of the catastrophe is the El NiГ±o weather system, but policy and governance shortcomings in both countries have aggravated the situation, as Richard Downie explains.Дorothy Mnemula, the head of a household of four in Balaka district, Malawi, shows us her groundnut (peanut) harvest, the product of many months of hard labor. An estimated 6.5 million Malawians-39 percent of the population-will need emergency food assistance by the end of the year, and at least 1.5 million Mozambicans face similar risks. Family Planning, Maternal and Child Health, and ImmunizationsДЄ team from the CSIS Africa Program and the CSIS Global Food Security Project recently returned from Mozambique and Malawi, which are in the grip of the worst drought to hit southern Africa for more than three decades.Energy, Climate Change, and Environmental Impacts.Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation.Defense Industry, Acquisition, and Innovation.Intelligence, Surveillance, and Privacy.

Richard downie state farm