Xai-Xai, Mozambique – Months after floodwaters tore through his neighbourhood, Joacim Pinto still walks past the empty plots where his crops once grew.

The ground that once gave his family food and income now stands as a reminder of what was lost. His livestock disappeared, and the gardens that provided food and security were swallowed by the floods.

But for Pinto, 50, the disaster did not end when the water receded.

For the resident of Xa-Xai, in Mozambique’s southern Gaza province, surviving the floods was only the beginning of the struggle.

“We either die from the floods, or if we survive, hunger takes over,” Pinto tells Al Jazeera.

The floods swept across Mozambique from late December 2025 into early 2026, leaving communities like Pinto’s facing a second crisis: finding enough money to buy food after losing the ability to produce much of it themselves.

“The floods destroyed our wells, pipes, livestock and gardens,” Pinto says. “The price of basic food increased sharply.”

Lost harvests

Mozambique is still recovering from one of its most damaging flood seasons in recent years. The disaster affected communities across several central and southern provinces, including Gaza, Maputo, Inhambane, Sofala and Zambezia.

For farming families, the destruction was immediate. Fields disappeared under water, harvests were lost, and roads used to move food between farms and markets were damaged.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), about 275,405 hectares (680,540 acres) of farmland were affected, threatening the livelihoods of approximately 314,783 farmers.

In rural Mozambique, farming is not simply a source of income. It is a household safety net.

Before the floods, Pinto’s garden reduced his dependence on shops and traders. It provided food for his family and helped protect them from sudden price increases.

Now the gardens around his neighbourhood lie empty, and families who once relied on their own harvests must turn to markets where prices have climbed.

The United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) warned that flooding has disrupted access to food across many affected areas.

Roads became impassable, markets stopped operating in some communities, and transport costs increased. In places where floodwater cut roads, food could not easily reach people who needed it.

At the same time, local production fell as farmland was damaged.

“So, while the exact inflation rate varies by district, what we see on the ground is significant pressure on food prices driven by a dramatic reduction in supply, alongside a surge in humanitarian needs,” Ana Mato Hombre, WFP Mozambique spokesperson, tells Al Jazeera.

“In many flood-affected areas, food stocks were lost, cropland destroyed and several markets are not functioning at all,” she adds.

Hombre says isolated cases of traders taking advantage of shortages cannot be ruled out, but the main force behind rising prices appears to be the loss of production and disruption of supply routes.

Rising prices

The effects of the floods have travelled far beyond damaged fields.

“Every time we have floods or droughts in the Southern African region, food prices rise because of supply shortages and the high cost of importing food,” says Tafadzwanashe Mabhaudhi, a professor of climate change and food systems at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Mabhaudhi, who is originally from the region and has studied climate-related threats to food systems across Southern Africa, says repeated disasters are changing how vulnerable communities survive.

“It also means poorer diets because people cannot access a range of foods,” he tells Al Jazeera.

The latest floods came while communities were still recovering from the severe drought linked to the 2024–2025 El Nino weather pattern, which affected agricultural production across parts of southern Africa.

For families already weakened by drought, another disaster leaves little time to recover.

Broken supply lines

The crisis has also reached traders trying to keep food moving.

“We had no choice but to add 10 percent in markup to the price of rice, flour, live chicken and other products,” says Shuwa Anolis, a truck driver and food trader in Xai-Xai.

Flooding disrupted major transport routes linking southern and northern Mozambique, pushing up fuel and delivery costs.

“Look at the main highway linking south to north of the country; it was flooded and impassable. Our fuel costs remain high too,” Anolis tells Al Jazeera.

He says the price of prepared chicken increased after the floods because transporting and supplying food became more expensive.

“It’s business; it’s survival,” he says.

But for families who lost their crops, higher prices add another burden.

Traders are trying to recover rising costs while households that once fed themselves from their own land are struggling to buy what they need.

A climate burden

Mozambique is repeatedly absorbing the costs of climate extremes despite contributing little to the greenhouse gas emissions driving global warming.

The country’s exposure is shaped by geography, dependence on agriculture and limited resources to rebuild after disasters.

Mabhaudhi says Mozambique’s position downstream of major river systems also increases its vulnerability because flooding can be influenced by rainfall and land-use activities beyond its borders.

But the impact is not only measured in lost crops and damaged homes.

Repeated disasters are shrinking the time communities have to recover. Families lose crops, begin rebuilding and then face another shock before they have regained their footing.

Recovery on hold

For Pinto and thousands of other survivors, the disappearance of the floodwaters has not marked the end of the crisis.

The challenge now is rebuilding livelihoods before the next shock arrives.

“The same communities whose crops were devastated by drought are still recovering, and now they have been devastated by floods,” Mabhaudhi says. “There is a limit on people’s ability to cope with back-to-back disasters.”