Denial of Malawi Food Insecurity goes against the Grain

Mail & Guardian | 17 Sep 2010

By Kristin Palitza

While Malawian president Bingu wa Mutharika insists his country doesn’t need food aid, independent agricultural experts and the countries’ small-scale farmers strongly disagree.

According to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Food Security Early Warning System, more than one million Malawians face starvation because of poor rains.

Local farmers confirm SADC’s assessment. They say they live from hand to mouth and are struggling with malnutrition and poverty. “There is a lot of hunger. We also lack clothes and cannot pay our children’s school fees,” laments Gordon Kudimba, a smallholder from Mkama, a rural village in Salima district, 100 kilometres east of Malawi’s capital Lilongwe.

Mutharika wants to hear nothing of such complaints. In a televised state address on 26 August, he threatened to close down newspapers “that lie and tarnish my government's image” because they reported food insecurity warnings. He claims Malawi harvested 2.4 million tonnes this year, leaving a surplus of more than 400,000 tonnes for export.

Although SADC’s food security update also noted a surplus, its agricultural experts warn that this will not prevent at least one million of the country’s 13 million people from being food insecure and requiring humanitarian assistance. Maize, rice, millet and wheat production have been “seriously affected by dry spells in most parts of the country from December 2009 to February 2010”, the report states.

But Mutharika has vowed he will not ask for food aid. He believes farmers receive sufficient support through the $185 million seed and fertilizer programme he launched five years ago.

While the programme was initially hailed as a success, numerous international experts have meanwhile questioned how many farmers have actually benefited from it. In 2008, a public outcry shook the country when it became known that rich businessmen buy off fertilizer stocks to re-sell them at exorbitant prices.

Despite all his bravado, Mutharika is expected to apply for money from the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) by the end of September, which is managed by he Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), administered by World Bank and based on a $22 billion pledge by the G8. One of CAADP’s four pillars is increasing food and nutrition security.

But those funds might come too late for Malawi’s smallholder farmers who say this year’s harvest is too modest to even feed their own families. Recurring floods and droughts in past years have made it almost impossible for them to make an income or have savings, leaving them trapped in a cycle of poverty and vulnerability.

Without assistance from government, they rely for their survival on the help of international donors, such as the Red Cross, which launched an irrigation and disaster prevention programme in Salima district in 2007.

The organisation helps farmers to prevent flooding by planting trees and reeds that strengthen riverbanks and trains them to monitor water levels and construct storm drains. It also encourages smallholders to move their fields at least 50 metres away from rivers, so that they don’t loose their harvest when riverbanks burst. But because the large majority of farmers don’t have access to irrigation systems, they want to be as close to a water source as possible.

“Farmers here are highly vulnerable to floods and droughts, and due to climate change both are on the increase,” explains Malawi Red Cross district project officer Charles Chadza. “Because 90 percent of farmers rely on rain-fed agriculture, without access to irrigation, productivity is very low in any case.”

To change this, the Red Cross has started several irrigation clubs in the Salima area where 30 to 40 farmers come together to pool their resources. Each club receives either three paddle pumps, if fields are close to a river, or a solar- and wind-powered irrigation system.

Being able to water their fields has an instant impact on the size of their harvest, the farmers say. “Because we can irrigate, our plants grow bigger and better. We can now also do winter cropping, which means we plant twice a year,” says smallholder Dauda Lucks. “But it’s still just enough to feed our families. There is no surplus yet that we can sell.”

Kudimba agrees: “If we didn’t have support from an organisation like the Red Cross, we would still starve today.”

The farmers say they are unable to afford to purchase fertiliser for their fields, which is sold for 4,000 Kwacha (R190) per bag. That’s a lot of money for rural Malawians, many of whom live off 1,000 Kwacha (R47.50) a day. When asked if they ever had access to the subsidised fertilizer, Kudimba and Lucks shake their heads.