Impacts of COVID-19 on household food insecurity in Malawi

One of the seminal events of our time was the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent widespread economic disruptions. Malawi relies heavily on farming, and the COVID-19 resulted in issues such as job loss, market closures and limited access to food. We examine COVID-19 impacts on household food insecurity in Malawi using Malawi’s Living Standard Measurement Survey (LSMS) data collected by the Malawian Government National Statistical Office in 2020/21. We employed an Ordered Probit Regression model to determine the factors influencing household ending food security due to COVID-19 shock. After controlling common indicators for food security from the literature, we find that the impact of lockdowns (reduced number of times to market and job loss) increases the probability of lower levels of food security by 16.4 percent and 14.7 percent. Also stocking up on food increases the probability of higher levels of food security by 48.4 percent. Furthermore, the study revealed that larger household sizes increase the probability of a lower level of food security by 1.9 percent. The results of this study suggest strategies such as developing and investing in technologies for households to preserve foods for better and long-term storage and to prepare for future shocks more effectively.