Africa-Press – Malawi. A Maize Market Report by International Food Policy Research Institute (Ifpri) has shown that it is likely that maize prices reached their seasonal minimum in the third week of May, when it reached an average of K928 per kilogramme (kg), and that they will start rising in the coming months.
The report, which was released on Thursday, indicates that this year’s bottoming out price is 57 percent higher than last year, when maize prices bottomed out at K592 per kg.
However, Ifpri notes in the report that the price is still far below the government-prescribed minimum farmgate price of K1,050 per kg.
It notes that many farmers must have sold their maize at even lower prices than it retails for.
“The national maize price trend hides significant regional differences. Most markets in the southern half of Malawi registered a net price increase in May, having typically bottomed out in the second week of the month.
“The notable exceptions to this trend were Zomba, Blantyre, Thyolo and Chikwawa, where maize prices were higher at the end of April than at the end of May,” Ifpri says.
In contrast, the report says maize prices continued to decline in almost all markets in the northern half of the country, from Chitipa to Lilongwe.
“The only exception to this trend was Jenda [Market], which registered a net increase in prices during May, but which still reported the lowest prices in all of Malawi, thanks to cheap imports from Zambia.
“Maize prices thus remained highest in the Southern Region, averaging K992 per kg in the last week of May, followed by the Central (K901 per kg) and Northern (K825 per kg) regions. By the end of the month, maize was retailing below the government-mandated minimum farmgate price of K1,050 per kg in all monitored markets except Chiringa in Phalombe,” the report says.
Ifpri further notes that in contrast to April, when maize was consistently flowing into Malawi from all directions, May saw the emergence of maize export activity in a few Southern Region districts such as Chikwawa, Mulanje, Phalombe Machinga and Mangochi as well as in Chitipa in the Northern Region.
“However, these exports were sporadic, and imports clearly continue dominating cross-border trade in maize.
“By the end of the month, the commodity was entering Malawi through all monitored border locations except Mbirima in Chitipa,” Ifpri says.
Malawi largely depends on maize for food.
In April, the Ministry of Agriculture released second-round crop estimates which revealed that Malawi is likely to have about 2,962,620 metric tonnes (mt) of maize, a 9.2 percentage increase from the final estimate of 2,712,578mt which Malawi registered in the 2023-24 growing season.
However, the quantity is less than Malawi’s annual maize requirement, which stands at 3.1 million mt.
Agriculture Minister Sam Kawale attributed the slight increase in maize production to good prices of last year, which he said had seen about 2.4 percent of more land being cultivated this growing season than the last one.
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