These two quotes, from an article that is a bit outdated by now with the official transition, does bring up a linkage between the Taureg insurgency, Mali, and the famine. If I were the Malian government, I would probably use the food as leverage, try to break the Tauregs by starving them to death or forcing them to migrate to other Sahelian states.
A few problems with that:

1. There is no shortage of extremely fragile states from which to operate from. "Starving them out" will simply transfer the problem to these states, from which they can easily regroup and come back stronger (see how Liberia destabilised Sierra Leone).

2. This isn't Biafra 2.0 when the Nigerian government used "starvation as a legitimate weapon of war". Will the international community tolerate starvation as a weapon of war? In any case, I don't recall starvation having a great record of forcing outcomes in Africa's recent history. (Mugabe is still in business, Somalia is still as messed up as it was before).