Talk:Food security in Malawi

Currently rewritting
Gathering information and rewritting the article in Microsoft Word. Help is welcome. - Tutmosis 20:11, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Excuse me, but I just saw on the news that Malawi has dramatically increased agriculture recently, and is now exporting food to its neighbors. School attendance is up, and people are feeling good about the future. Why doesn't the article reflect this change? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.101.112.219 (talk) 02:58, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Updating the Malawian food crisis article
I plan on updating this article as part of my work as a Poverty, Justice, and Human Capabilities minor at Rice University. As others have noted, this article’s information is out of date. I plan on updating it with more recent information about the current food crisis in Malawi (in 2013, the UN reported that 11% of the population, 1.63 million people, are suffering from food shortages), as well as expanding the information about the 2005 food crisis. After the 2005 food crisis, Malawi was on the rise and even had a surplus of maize for some years; interventions by the Malawian government and international organizations (primarily fertilizer subsidy programs for farmers) have allowed Malawi to recover. Recently, however, due to periods of flooding and drought (among other causes), the maize yield has been dangerously low and the food shortage has returned.

I plan on discussing the food crisis from the early 2000s as well as the current one. My proposed outline for this article is as follows:
 * Background and causes of 2005 food crisis
 * Background of food crises in Malawi
 * Political causes
 * Economic causes
 * Social causes
 * Agricultural and climate causes


 * Relief efforts from 2005 food crisis
 * Effects of the 2005 food crisis
 * Health
 * Policy
 * Culture

I realize that the political, economic, and social causes of the food crisis are interrelated, and so I will address that in the article.
 * Food shortage in 2013

I would really appreciate any feedback on this proposed outline as I move forward. An anonymous commenter previously noted that Malawi’s agriculture increased dramatically in 2008, and that school attendance was up. I had not previously thought of the relationship between school attendance and the food crisis (although clearly there is one), and I would love any feedback or suggestions on how to integrate that and other social/cultural effects of the food crisis into my article. Avw1 (talk) 05:37, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
 * As for school attendance and food supply, be careful - correlation might not imply causation. bobrayner (talk) 21:07, 25 February 2014 (UTC)


 * That's something my professor also brought up, so I plan on renaming the first section to "Background and factors involved." Thanks for the feedback! 128.42.96.239 (talk) 07:33, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Peer Review
Great contribution so far! I appreciate your focus on context, and the valuable text, pictures, and external links that you have added. I just have a few areas where I think you could make some revisions. First, one thing your article would benefit from is increased specificity. You often make statements like “some,” “others,” or “many.” Who are these people? Where is the evidence for the statement “many?” How many? For example, you say that there were many human rights violations during Banda’s reign- what were these? Another area is the first sentence of the “climatological” section, where you say that “Some have suggested...” Who are “some?” I think this would be a good place for an in-text citation. There are a lot of places where you say “some” or “others” (such as the beginning of the “Culture and society” section) and more specificity is needed.

Along these lines, I think your article could also benefit from more in-text citations. You have a lot of statistics; it would be good to say where a few of them came from in the actual text, as it establishes credibility with readers.

So, just a few things to fix- your contribution is great!! Kimmyfromtexas (talk) 22:32, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Peer Review
Great contribution to the topic. Overall, you provided depth on the different aspects of this crisis (i.e. Economical, Climatological, Social, etc.). I think that you used data very well throughout the article. Some minor improvements would be adding more blue links throughout the beginning of the article. Another aspect to improve would be your citations/references. I think simply acknowledging who said what would be very beneficial for the readers. Also, I really appreciated the reference to The Boy who Harnessed the Wind because of the PJHC course. Nice job! Cristell24 (talk) 13:01, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 4 external links on Malawian food crisis. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20140414075010/http://foodsecurecanada.org/sites/default/files/right_to_food_malawi.pdf to http://foodsecurecanada.org/sites/default/files/right_to_food_malawi.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20141116154114/http://www.unsystem.org/scn/archives/rwns94update/ch14.htm to http://www.unsystem.org/scn/archives/rwns94update/ch14.htm
 * Added tag to http://www.reading.ac.uk/ssc/n/TIP%20Archive%20CD/related%20materials/SoilfertOpt/Malawistarterpack.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150316233943/http://timesmediamw.com/no-maize-in-malawis-admarc-depots/ to http://timesmediamw.com/no-maize-in-malawis-admarc-depots/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20140209164815/http://www.geohive.com/earth/pop_urban.aspx to http://www.geohive.com/earth/pop_urban.aspx

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 22:54, 13 January 2018 (UTC)