Opinion: Is food security and tobacco growing incompatible in Africa?
The SADC Regional Vulnerability Assessment estimates that an alarming 16% of the region’s population are food insecure.
The effects of the current El Nino phenomenon have further deepened food insecurity in Malawi and the region more broadly.
Indeed the volatility of climate change presents arguably the greatest threat to food security and, by extension, human security in sub-Saharan Africa. Hunger and poverty are directly and closely correlated and any threat to food security has a direct knock-on effect on the region achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. SADC has acknowledged the looming crisis in its ‘Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security’.
