Photo journal: Struggling to eat

This rainy season has been better and has brought some relief to the region.

But the underlying causes remain, such as chronic poverty, weakened agriculture and health sectors due to widespread HIV/Aids, political inertia and inappropriate agricultural and economic policies.

Current rains will not produce crops until April.

Still, millions of subsistence farmers prepared the parched soil and planted in the hope of a harvest in three months' time.