Agriculture in Malawi needs help from all directions
Malawians are hungry. Poor farming techniques, including dependency on chemical fertilizers, are a big part of the problem. In order to find a sustainable solution to hunger, NGOs and government programs need to focus on putting knowledge, and ultimately power, in Malawians’ own hands.
By Christine Wendel
On a warm winter day in central Malawi, William Nkhunga showed local farmers how to create compost from their own human waste. “We call it an ‘ecological sanitation toilet’,” William said. “When someone uses the toilet, he’s supposed to add carbon material to the toilet, with the aim of making it dry. Sometimes to reduce the smell, you add some scoops of ash.” Carbon material can be anything from dried grass or leaves to wood chips or sawdust – basically any brown, dry organic material. Once the toilet is full, it is covered and should remain covered for a period of six or seven months while it undergoes a decomposition process. “After that, the human manure is safe to be used in a garden,” William explained.
Growing up in a small village near Dowa, Malawi, William is familiar with the usual farming techniques practiced in his country. But unlike most Malawians, William is also familiar with permaculture and uses this as the basis for his farming. “Farming is not all about using chemicals and synthetics,” William said. “There are more sustainable ways of farming.” Which is why nine months ago William joined the Kusamala Institute of Agriculture and Ecology, and now shares his knowledge of permaculture with other Malawians with the hope for more sustainable agriculture and food sources in his country.
Kusamala Institute of Agriculture and Ecology is a nonprofit organization that promotes household-level permaculture and agro-ecology methods in Malawi. The goal is to equip farmers with the skills and knowledge to create low-input agricultural systems through education, demonstration, outreach and advocacy.
Permaculture includes all aspects of life, including agriculture, water management, waste management, green building and efficient use of energy. Permaculture is a system of working with nature, rather than against it, and Kusamala says it can be used as a guide towards a more sustainable future. “They [permaculture techniques] were not here some years back,” William said. “They’re just coming in, I guess because people have been looking at the problems we are now having.”
William points to soil erosion and climate change as evidence of poor farming practices in Malawi. “In the 1980s we received our soaking rains at the end of October, that is when we are supposed to receive fast soaking rains. But with the change of climate, due to human interferences, we now receive the rains mid-December, end of December or beginning of January,” he said. Human interferences when it comes to agriculture in Malawi mainly include deforestation to make room for crops and the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers. From 1996 – 2002, the World Bank reported that Malawi was a ‘high-use’ country in Africa, averaging greater than 25 kilograms of chemical fertilizer per hectare of farmland. In 2011, they reported Malawi was using an average of 33 kilograms of chemical fertilizer per hectare. Still, this is a low number when you consider that developed nations Denmark, the United States, and Finland use over 100 kg/hectare, and some nations, such as New Zealand, China and Singapore use thousands of kilograms of chemical fertilizer.
One big part of the permaculture techniques that Kusamala promotes is non-chemical farming, known to many as organic farming. Austin Dunn, a researcher for National Geographic working at Kusamala, elaborates on this. “At present, most farmers in Malawi are dependent on chemical fertilizers and seeds. I’m not saying that organic is better than conventional methods, especially given the poor soil. These farmers need fertilizer to grow their crops, but it’s a problem of dependence on that,” Dunn explains.
Chemical Dependency
For hundreds of years, and before colonial invasion, Africans relied on only natural fertilizers and vast amounts of land to use for agricultural production. The abundance of land meant farmers could move freely to search for grazing lands without coming into conflict with farming communities, and they could use expansive agricultural methods. Rather than using lots of inputs to keep soil fertile, farmers would open a new field when the soil was exhausted or they wanted to increase yields.
Malawi’s savannah climate was not as bad as some regions, but still did not have the most fertile soil ideal for growing crops. Because this Great Lakes Region was more densely populated than many regions in Africa, opening new fields due to exhausted soil was not as easy, so farmers needed to keep their lands productive. In some areas, farmers fertilized their crops with manure and grass from nearby pastures. This was especially used for growing banana tree groves, as bananas were important to agricultural survival in this area.
In 1891, Nyasaland – Malawi’s former name – was established as a British colony. By 1930, the cash-crop industry of growing tobacco, cotton and maize had become the basis of the colonial economy, and chemical fertilizers were implemented into the farming systems to improve cash-crop success. Since independence in 1964, Malawian policies have subsidized maize and fertilizer heavily.
Hardly any farmers can afford to buy fertilizer alone in Malawi, as approximately 65 percent of inhabitants live below the national poverty level and 28 percent in extreme poverty, according to a United Nations report. The UN report also shows that the occurrence of climate and weather related disasters such as drought and flood has steadily increased since 1970. Increased levels of droughts and floods are intensifying the circle of poverty that Malawian farmers cannot escape.
In 2005 the Malawi government implemented a program called Farm Input Subsidy Program after a massive famine had swept Malawi. Smallholder farmers, the poorest of the poor, were eligible to receive free fertilizer and seeds. The program was successful in that Malawi began exporting maize, where for a number of years before, they had needed to import it. This gave many people the questionable conclusion that Malawi was more food secure. “It sort of depends on what you are looking at,” said Dunn. “A lot of people would say it was successful, and Malawi is more food secure. But the stance of this organization [Kusamala], and for me personally, growing a ton of maize is not really food security. It’s only one crop, and that has had many implications for the Malawian diet among other things.”
A diet of maize
Maize, which constitutes a disproportionate amount of Malawi farmland today, became a major staple for sub-Saharan Africa during the 19th century. Farmers found that their crop yields per hectare were far higher from maize than from other commonly grown grains, such as millet or sorghum. The high growth yield coupled with availability of the crop due to subsidies has led to a monoculture of maize in Malawi. Nutrition expert at Kusamala Julia Reynolds said about 95 percent of Malawians farm for a living, and most devote their fields to maize. “Unfortunately this means that most of the space on a plate of food is also devoted to maize, since most farmers rely on what they grow for food,” Reynolds said.
The traditional staple food in Malawi, nsima, is cooked by adding water to maize flour over a fire. “Most Malawians eat nsima at least once a day, if not for every meal,” Reynolds said. She said this means the bulk of Malawians’ calories come from refined carbohydrates, which offer little micronutrients, protein or fats. Poor nutrition has grave health implications for Malawians, who at birth only have a life-expectancy rate of less than 55 years according to UNICEF.
Researchers at the University of Malawi published an article this year stating that growth stunting and poor child development are major concerns in Malawi, and reports that 47 percent of Malawians have stunted growth, a nutrition-related health problem. “It’s true that many farmers grow pumpkin leaves or mustard greens alongside the maize,” Reynolds elaborated, “but just as they are supplementary crops, the vegetables are also only supplementary to maize during mealtime. Growing different kinds of vegetables, legumes, grains, etc, would help diversify diets.” As it is now, according to the UN Human Development Report, 75 percent of a normal Malawi diet is maize.
Over 90 percent of Malawians are subsistence farmers, so they rely on their own fields for their source of food. As most focus on growing maize, even when there is enough food to eat after the harvest, they are not eating diverse foods. Reynolds said the rainy season there is called “the hungry season”, because that is when reserves from the last harvest run out before the next harvest. During this period a lot of Malawians die from starvation or other malnutrition-related causes.
One crop, one hope
Besides maize not providing proper nutrition, there are other problems with the monoculture farming in Malawi. “In the rainy seasons, there are just fields and fields of maize, and that makes them incredibly vulnerable,” Dunn explained. “If you don’t get enough rain and that crop fails … that is the only crop you have. So it’s very vulnerable to disaster.”
In 2002, the world saw first hand what happens when this type of disaster strikes. Failing rains meant failing maize in Malawi, and around 1,000 people died from hunger or hunger-related diseases in only a three-month period. The UN called this one of the worst famines in living memory, and yet, only three years later in 2005, over one-third of Malawians were again without adequate food supplies.
Since then, the Farm Input Subsidy Program mentioned earlier has indeed given farmers denser crop yields. Still, it is not a sustainable solution. In addition to the nutrition and vulnerability problems with mono agriculture of maize, it is not economically sustainable either. The vast majority, if not all, of the policies that are subsidizing fertilizers for smallholder farmers in Malawi is paid for with donor money. Meaning if money stops coming in, and farmers have no access to fertilizer, a major food-shortage might occur.
Time for action
In 1974, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration on the Eradication of Hunger and Malnutrition, stating that “Every man, woman and child has the inalienable right to be free from hunger and malnutrition in order to develop fully and maintain their physical and mental faculties.” Recently, last November, 2013, the UN declared 2014 the International Year of Family Farming. Forty years later and the international community is still working on solutions to solve hunger. In order to do so, the world will need more people with more knowledge of sustainable food systems to take action.
Many argue that organic farming needs to be implemented in Malawi, as chemical free methods are both healthier and more sustainable. “It's well documented that the introduction of agro-ecological methods, as required in organic farming, in low input systems can increase the crop yield per unit of area,” said Dr. John E Hermansen, Professor of Agroecology at Aarhus University. Still, organic methods take longer to implement, and do not produce the high yields that use of chemical fertilizers can give farmers after only the first year of use. Although there are environmental implications, many others say chemical fertilizers are a good idea, if not to only eradicate hunger for the short-term. Nutrition expert Julia Reynolds explained, “Since many Malawians live day-to-day, ideas about health and nutrition, which are inherently long-term ideas, don’t stand up to short-term hunger.”
The sensible solution, then, is to wean small-scale farmers off of chemical fertilizers by teaching them permaculture methods, but not completely abandon chemical fertilizers, not yet at least. It would be too risky to implement only organic methods at this time. “If people didn’t need to use fertilizer, that’s great, but realistically they very much do need that,” Dunn said. He went on to explain, though, that by promoting other strategies, such as permaculture, the reliance on external inputs, like chemical fertilizers, would lessen. “What we’re doing is sort of in response to the problems that chemical intensive farming has created,” Dunn said.
Most of the permaculture practices that Kusamala teaches and promotes are simple. One example is leaving leftover crop residue, such as corn stalks, on the field to keep the soil covered. This protects the soil from the sun, which is extremely hot in Malawi and dries out the soil quickly. Dunn said this technique extends the growing season and after the first rain, moisture will stay in the soil. Another technique is intercropping, or planting plants that are mutually supportive of one another, such as fertilizer-based trees. “You just have to think creatively with how you are going to use stuff,” said Kusamala Geographic Information Systems consultant Asa Strong. “Small things like designing your fields in ways that manage water correctly or giving the most sunlight to the plants that need it make a big difference.”
Spreading knowledge of permaculture is good in the short run and the long run. It is good in the short-run because public and private outreach has not reached smallholder farmers. “They’ve been kind of left out of a system of economic growth for the most part,” explained Strong. “In the short run, it’s a great thing that they’re being able to learn how to maximize utility from the resources that they have around.” In the long run, implementing organic methods will be more environmentally, economically, and arguably food source, sustainable. Strong points out that if knowledge and training of sustainable agriculture is not spread, there will be sad consequences in the future. “Private and public services have to reach smallholder farmers if they’re going to avoid environmental catastrophe with soil
depletion, nutrient depletion, the loss of forests, and ecosystem services from the land.”
As it is now, there is a whole lot of loss of natural capital and human capital.
Born in the Midwest, USA, Christine Wendel is an American journalist, adventurer and nature-enthusiast. She has worked as a reporter for radio and television news, including Thompson Reuters in Belgium and NPR and NBC affiliates throughout the Midwest. Currently she is a photography editor for the online news site Pandeia and a lab technician for Keystone, an environmental science laboratory.
Photo by Austin Dunn.
