President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika has come out of his cocoon and admitted that over 2 million Malawians will not be able to meet their annual food requirement during the 2015/16 consumption period.

Mutharika said this on Monday morning during a media briefing held at Kamuzu Palace in the capital Lilongwe.

In his speech, Mutharika attributed the hunger situation in the country to what he called the worst 2014/2015 growing season which was characterized by heavy floods claiming over 100 lives.

“The results of the assessment show that a total of 2,833,212 people will not be able to meet their annual food requirement during the 2015/16 consumption period.

“This represents 17 per cent of the country’s total population. The affected population is spread in 25 districts, namely: Chitipa Karonga and Mzimba in the Northern Region; Dedza, Dowa, Kasungu, Lilongwe, Mchinji Nkhotakota, Ntcheu and Salima in the Central Region; and Balaka, Blantyre, Chikwawa, Chiradzulu, Machinga, Mangochi, Mulanje, Mwanza, Neno, Nsanje, Phalombe, Thyolo and Zomba in the Southern Region. Although there has been people facing hunger in recent years, the situation this year is the worst in many years,” said Mutharika.

He added: “The MVAC report estimates the total humanitarian food that is required to support the affected people to be at 124,183 metric tons of maize equivalence.”

Mutharika said his government has developed the 2015/2016 Food Insecurity Response Plan.

The response plan requires a total of US$146.378 million,” said Mutharika.

Meanwhile President Mutharika has urged well-wishers both local and international join hands with his administration in assisting the affected families.