Zambia has a maize deficit of 200,000 tonnes in the current 2015/2016 crop season after drought damaged the crop in many parts of the country, a government spokesman said on Wednesday.

A prolonged drought threatens crops across the Southern African region where the United Nations has warned that 14 million people face hunger.

Zambia is considering asking farmers to grow irrigated maize, buy up local stocks in remote parts of the country or import maize from South America to plug the deficit, Presidential spokesman Amos Chanda said.

“Assuming that farmers are unable to grow irrigated maize to produce the 200,000 tonnes, then we may have to import the maize from South America,” Chanda told journalists.

“The good news is that the Millers Association of Zambia and the Zambia National Farmers Union think there is sufficient maize on the local market and we may just have to mop it up.”

Zambia’s current 2015/2016 maize crop is expected to be a third lower than the previous year due to the severe drought in many parts of the country.

Zambia’s maize harvest dropped 21 percent to 2.6 million tonnes in the 2014/2015 season versus the previous season.

Domestic maize prices in South Africa, the region’s top producer of the staple grain, have scaled record peaks in recent days because of the drought.