Feature

By Frazer Potani,Lilongwe, Malawi

Around this time a decade ago, Betty Kapinga, 34, from Mtsinje Village, in Senior Chief Tsabango’s Area a rural settlement sharing boundary with Lilongwe City, would move from maize mill door to maize mill door in Trading Centres for Madeya (maize bran) [which is given to pigs as food] for flour for nsima(Malawi’s stapple food made of hard porridge eaten with relish).
“It’s now history because since government introduced the Fertilizer Subsidy Programme, I am able to grow my own food and feed myself and my five children,” said Kapinga, a widow whose husband died in 2004.
She disclosed that during this lean season whereby most poor Malawian families who can not afford to spend $1(K140 per day) have no food, she has 13 bags of maize in her house and had prepared her garden soon after harvesting in May this year.
Kapinga is one of thousands beneficiaries of Fertilizer Subsidy programme that saw President Bingu wa Mutharika honoured with Agri Cola Award by Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) for rescuing Malawians from the ‘Gehena of hunger’ to ‘Paradise of plenty food’.
No wonder the Miami, United States of America (USA) based Foundation for Democracy in Africa (FDA), recently also saluted Mutharika for his bold reforms that have transformed Malawi into southern Africa’s food basket and beyond.
“During President Mutharika’s first term in office (2004-2008), the country achieved a high rate of agricultural production and food security. In the 2005-2006 crop season, Malawi achieved a food surplus of more than 500,000 metric tones, during the 2006-2007 planting season, food surplus spiked to 1.3 million metric tones,” says the foundation adding,“Today, Malawi has the capability of exporting food to other countries.”
Malawi is geared to continue singing a good song of attaining surplus food once the Mutharika’s Green Belt irrigation project iinitiative is fully implemented.
In the initiative, Mutharika wants farmers from within Malawi and beyond to grow food through irrigation from Karonga along Lake Malawi in the north down to Lower Shire in the south using water tapped from the lake and other water sources available in the country.
“We don’t have to necessarily rely on rainfall to produce food in this country when we have plenty water in Lake Malawi and rivers we can use for irrigation farming.Some countries on the planet do not receive rains yet produce food through irrigation using available water sources in their territory why should Malawians starve when we have plenty water sources we can use to produce food?” said Mutharika adding,“Relying only on rainfall for our agriculture is even risky because our country is experincing the negative impacts of climate change.”
Already villagers along Nankokwe River in Senior Chief Kachindamoto’s Area, Dedza over 100 Km from Lilongwe are reaping fruits from irrigation farming through winter cropping from their nearby 800 hectare Bwanje Irrigation Scheme built by Japan through Japanese International Corporation Agency (JICA).
Japan’s ambassador to Malawi, Motoyoshi Noro, assured Malawians that his government would continue supporting Malawi government in food security programmes.
Noro disclosed that over 32,000 Malawian farmers are benefiting from irrigation projects with funding from his government.
“The recent awards including one on recognition on the country’s food security received by the President [ Mutharika] is a true reflection that he is committed to food security programmes,” said Noro.
Senior Chief Kachindamoto said Bwanje scheme can feed the whole Malawi and beyond.
“If we tap more water from nearby Lake Malawi, food production will even increase and I am confident that if this is done the scheme can feed the whole Malawi and beyond,” she said.
The chief also added that farmers from her scheme and countrywide need transport and markets to sell their produce.
“I used to rely on my husband on everything but now we depend upon each other. I have 25 bags of maize, 10 bags of beans and 60 bags of rice produced from the scheme, I sold 30 of them and paid school fees for our four children. I am looking for transport and market to sell the remaining bags,” said Hannah Mlongoti, a smallholder farmer at Bwanje scheme.
Malawi can however, sustain a bumper yielding nation because a study by a University of Malawi researcher,Gerry Vitsitsi revealed that the country has many unexploited resources for agriculture.
The study says Malawians do not have even to experience food shortages and rely on food handouts from government, local and international agencies.
“Treadle pumps were introduced in Malawi in late 1990s and over a quarter million treadle pumps have been sold. There are some major opportunities for treadle pumps and other shallow lift pumps in Malawi. The country has 260,000 hectares of dambos and other wetlands that can be exploited for irrigation,” said Vitsitsi.
He added that these hectares can be made agriculturally productive with little negative or no negative environmental impact.
“These hectares could represent a vast, untapped opportunity for the drastic expansion of small holder controlled irrigation,” he said.
The researcher also disclosed that Malawian smallholder farmers producing food through irrigation using treadle pumps were already getting K50, 000 (about $360) per season from sales of their produce.
“Irrigation farming using treadle pumps increases dry season grain production, land use intensity and average crop yields are higher than those obtained by farmers using diesel pumps or other irrigation devices,” said Vitsitsi.
Norway’s ambassador to Malawi Bjon Johannessen however, said if Malawi’s food security success is to continue Malawians should plant trees on deforested land to conserve soil.
“Malawi’s fight in addressing food insecurity can not be won if planting and managing trees is left out. Reforestation is part of food security. Trees help in bringing rains and retaining soil fertility. Without trees, there would be no rains,” said Johannessen earlier this year during a NASFAM tree planting project in Nanjati Village in Ntcheu.
Johannessen has a point because Ministry of Agriculture’s study revealed that 20 million tones of soil that would have other been used for agricultural production is washed away in Malawi due to environmental degradation.
Malawi’s agriculture will also grow if more personnel and more farmers are protected from HIV and AIDS infections and deaths because according to a study by Spore Magazine covering agricultural issues, despite Malawi’s economy depending on agriculture the country has few experts in agriculture many have died of the pandemic.
The publication adds that the number of active farmers in Malawi’s agriculture sector is also decreasing due to HIV and AIDS hence farmers need protection against the virus snd new technologies that would enable them grow food be identified.
The FAO also says poor developing countries like Malawi have to overcome low agricultural inputs access such as fertilizer, quality seed and energy by poor farmers especially women (making over 70 percent of food producers] to maintain food security.
“There is a need to increase outputs to come mainly from intensified and more efficient use of land, water and plant and animal genetic potential, fisheries and forestry resources that small holder farmers have at their disposal,” says the agency adding, “Climate change, resources depletion including mineral fertilizers, irrigation water, soil fertility and land use all exacerbate food crisis worldwide.”
It adds that proper food storage to prevent it from rotting before consumption and identifying market to sell after harvests in poor developing countries like Malawi is vital in food security saying studies revela that farmers were losing 30 percent of their produce after harvests due to poor storage.
To reflect on the importance of food production on the planet the Food and Agriculture Organization set October 16 as World Food Day.
An international symposium held from June 8 to 11 in Vienna, Austria this year also highlighted the current global food security situation and on options on how to reduce hunger and alleviate poverty worldwide.
“It’s important to note that food insecurity and hunger are being experienced by at least one billion people or one in six people; with a child dying of malnutrition every six seconds,” says the FAO.
It adds that more than 2.5 billion people depend for their income and nutrition on the efforts of small holder farming households particularly on the work of women farmers.
“Our challenge is not on how to ensure adequate food for the current 963 million hungry people, but also how we are going to feed a world population of over 8.3 billion people by 2030,” says the FAO adding that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon considers food security one of global key priorities.
“As a result emphasis has been placed on smallholder farmers because they produce the majority (up to 90 percent) of the food that is consumed in the world,” says the organization.
FAO Director Jacque Diouf said rescuing half of the people currently suffering from hunger by 2015 remains a challenge as global agricultural investment has to increase by $24 billion (K3.36 trillion) annually. This is why Malawi’s food security success continues to attract global attention.