Malawi set for another bumper harvest in 2008

THYOLO, Malawi (AFP) — Impoverished Malawi is set for a bumper
harvest of 3.3 million tonnes of maize which will yield a one million
tonne surplus in a country once crippled by famine, officials said
Wednesday.

"The first and second round of estimates show that
Malawi expects to harvest 3.3 million tonnes of maize," Frank
Mwenifumbo, deputy agriculture minister, told AFP.

Malawi, which
annually needs two million tonnes to feed its population, in 2007
harvested 3.2 million tonnes, representing a 22 percent increase from
2006.

Over 400,000 tonnes of the surplus maize from last year's
harvest was exported to cash-strapped Zimbabwe, once the region's
bread-basket.

The poor southern African nation met its food needs
in 2006 for the first time in seven years following a string of poor
harvests, mainly due to drought.

Food security is a pressing
issue in Malawi, where 60 percent of its people live below the poverty
line and on less than a dollar a day.

Famine threatened up to
five million people in 2005 following drought and the government spent
over 100 million dollars to import food from South Africa and the
region to avert hunger