Shading his eyes from the fierce glare of the midday sun, Mahlomola Monaheng gazes out in silence over his dry and dusty fields. Monaheng, a 76-year-old Lesotho farmer, has seen a lot while toiling the land. However, he has never seen anything like the drought ravaging his village once considered Lesotho’s maize basket.

In good years, his maize would be shoulder high at this time during the growing season. Even in bad years, his crop could be heard rustling around his waist. But this year, only a few plants have survived - and they are just knee-high, withering in the heat. “This is the worst drought I can remember,” said Monaheng, who has been a farmer for more than half a century.

Along with five other countries in southern Africa, Lesotho has been struggling to cope with successive years of severe food shortages, which have left over 300,000 people in need of assistance. In response to the crisis in Lesotho, USAID’s Food for Peace program provided 196,400 metric tons of emergency food aid to the Southern African region. Monaheng is one of the 375,000 people in Lesotho who have received food aid.