Work through whether holding your harvest for the lean season could beat selling now — the price it would need to fetch, the weight you'd lose in store, and the break-even, in plain arithmetic.
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From Town Tools. For the current version, visit https://www.towntools.org/mzuzu-mzimba-mw/store-or-sell
Around Mzuzu, maize is cheapest right after the April–June harvest, when many families sell to raise cash — and dearest in the December–February lean season. Holding some of your harvest back can pay, but stored grain loses weight to weevils, and waiting means carrying that risk.
This page works through the numbers from where you are standing today, not from the harvest: what you would get selling now, what the same maize might fetch in a normal year by the month you choose, and how much the price has to rise from today just to cover the weight you would still lose in store. Late in the season there is less rise left to collect and the arithmetic often says sell — which is a real answer, not a broken page.
It is now about 4 months since the June harvest, so this page compares selling today against holding on from here — not against what you could have got at harvest.
Roughly — what is in the store now and could be held back rather than sold.
Pre-filled with a rough price around 15 August 2026. Prices differ by market and change every week — put in the price you’re actually offered for the closest answer. You can look it up in the crop-prices tool below.
About MK 37,600 a 50 kg bag — the August 2026 survey price for maize at Zigwagwa, K752 a kilogram. Prices differ market to market and week to week, and the lean season is still ahead, so put in the price you are actually offered.
MK 376,000
If you sell now
10 50 kg bag × MK 37,600
MK 338,240
If you store to February
about 8 50 kg bag left × MK 40,330
−MK 37,760
Difference
less than selling now
16%
Weight you’d still lose
about 2 50 kg bag more to weevils and rot
In a typical year, holding this maize this long comes out about MK 37,760 behind selling now, because storage losses outrun the price rise.
The price has to rise this much just to break even
Holding 4 months more in an ordinary store loses about 16% of the weight still in the store, so the price a bag fetches must rise more than 19% above today’s before storing beats selling now — anything less and you’d have been better off selling today.In a normal year, maize sells for about 7% more by February than it does at this point in the season. That is the usual pattern, not a promise.
How prices usually move
This uses the usual seasonal pattern, not a forecast for this year. A good harvest, a poor one, ADMARC or maize-import decisions, or a swing in the kwacha can push prices far above the usual rise or, some years, keep them flat. Always sell against the real price on the day, not this estimate.
Cash now has a value too
Selling at harvest is often about needing money now — for school fees, inputs or debts. Money in hand today is worth more than the same money in eight months, and storing means carrying that wait plus the risk of theft, fire or a price that never rises. The bigger number here is only worth chasing if you can afford to wait.
Worth knowing
What you lose in store
The weight-loss figures follow measured smallholder maize storage studies for the region (APHLIS / EU JRC; Dijkink and others, 2022). How much you actually lose depends heavily on drying the grain well, keeping the store clean, and whether you treat or use airtight bags. Treat these as a normal-year guide, not a guarantee.
How prices usually move
Across the years, Malawi maize sells for about half as much again at the lean-season peak as at the harvest low — one of the sharpest seasonal swings of any crop in Africa (Gilbert, Christiaensen & Kaminski, Food Policy 2017, measured Malawi maize seasonality at about 50%). That is the whole swing, harvest to peak. How much of it is still ahead of you depends on the month: most of it in June, little of it by January. In a normal year the full rise is roughly 40–100%; in a drought or after a policy or kwacha shock it can be far more, and in a good year much less.
Where the month-by-month shape comes from
The month-by-month shape is worked out from the same World Food Programme market survey the crop-prices board on this page reads — maize at Zigwagwa and ten trading centres around the north, 1,406 monthly observations from 2003 to 2026. Each month is compared with the average for its own market and year, so inflation drops out and only the season remains. It is not a straight climb out of the harvest: prices keep falling through July and August, cross the year's average in September, and only then rise to a December–February peak. That is why this page asks what month it is now rather than counting from the harvest.
Where to check and read more
Crop prices around the northLook up the recent maize price for Mzuzu and nearby markets — the tool shows a price per kilogram, so multiply by about 50 for a bag.