No more begging for food aid: Malawi's Mutharika

Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika on Friday vowed he would never again "kneel down" for food aid with the southern African nation expecting a third maize bumper harvest in 2008.

"I will not, as your president, ever again kneel down in front of the donor communities to ask for maize. Please don't allow me to do that," Mutharika said when he opened an annual meeting of the newly-formed Farmers Union of Malawi.

In remarks broadcast live on state radio, Mutharika said: "We can ask for other assistance, but maize, for goodness sake, we can grow all the maize we want."

He said the country had vast valleys with the potential "to grow surplus maize." Maize is the staple food in Malawi, one of Africa's poorest countries.

"It's amazing the vast valleys which we can reclaim and grow all the food we want. Why do we suffer? We have valleys everywhere. Why do we Malawians have to suffer and ask for food somewhere else?"

Mutharika, who is also minister of agriculture, expressed optimism for this year's maize harvest, saying a crop and rainfall outlook had shown "we will also achieve a reasonable surplus this year."

Malawi, where food security is still a pressing issue, has been swamped with surplus maize from two bumper harvests since 2006, due to a popular subsidised fertiliser programme introduced by the Mutharika administration.

Malawi met its food needs in 2006 for the first time in seven years with a harvest of 2.2 million tons.

About 45 percent of Malawians live below the poverty line and on less than a dollar a day.