Poor Agricultural Practices in Malawi
Write a paper based on your research about one aspect of poverty related to your chosen case study country(Malawi). This paper forms the basis of your research contribution to the team project and presentation.
Malawi is one of the least developed countries across the world and according to the Human resource development index 2010, it is ranked 170 out of 187 countries across the world. Chronic food insecurity along with chronic poverty is two factors that are closely related to Malawi. The country is the residence of approximately 16 million people and 53 percent of the total population resides under the poverty line (Sumberg et al. 2012). Not only that, survey states that about 90 percent of the total population lives on less than 2 dollars per day. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) the number of severely malnourished children in the country is approximately 46,000 (Chirwa and Dorward 2013). One of the chief reasons behind the shortage of food in the mentioned nation is several issues associated with agriculture in Malawi. Poor agricultural practice has left the country with low crop yields and rampant food shortages (Pauw, Beck and Mussa 2016). While sustainable living is gaining popularity in the developed nation, poorer nations like Malawi struggle to practice agriculture without destroying the environment. In this report, analysis of the reasons behind food shortage in Malawi along with evolution of the mentioned aspect of poverty will be performed. Along with that, this report will also contain recommendations for eradicating the mentioned issues.
The analysis of the reasons behind food shortage in Malawi
One of the major reasons behind current food shortage in Malawi is the famine that took place in Malawi in the year 2012. According to ActionAid, the mentioned incident has resulted in death of more than 3000 individuals. 85 percent of the total population in Malawi is dependent upon agriculture as their primary source of income (Ngwira, Aune and Mkwinda 2012). The primary crops grown by the Malawi peasants are wheat and potato. Due to the famine, in 2013, maize harvest fell from 2.5 million to 1.7 million metric tons, which in turn, created a national deficit of 273,000 metric tons as a result of which a huge number of Malawi individuals were affected (Jerven 2014). According to researchers, poor agricultural practices can be pointed out as a major reason behind food crisis in Malawi (Chibwana, Fisher and Shively 2012). To a majority of Malawi population, agriculture is not only the chief source of their income but also the chief resource of their food. As a result of this, failure to grow crop due to natural disasters or adverse climatic conditions like unreliable rain, poor and infertile soil, creates an extremely dire situation. In such conditions, the families get entirely dependent on the hand outs from charitable institutions and on other communities. In situations when no such facilities are available, the Malawi people are left with no other option but to starve.
Natural Disasters and Famine
Being the 8th poorest country across the world, thee peasants of Malawi faces a huge range of challenges (Jerven 2014). The two major reasons behind crop failure is the low nutrients in soil and dry climatic condition. As discussed earlier, the chief crop grown by Malawi is Maize, a plant that needs nutrient as well as heavy rainfall to thrive. A bad monsoon results in a poor yield. Moreover, being the farmers of a poor country, Malawi farmers are not able to afford irrigation systems for watering crops at that time of the year.
Another reason behind food shortage in Malawi is the lack of technologically advanced agricultural tools in Malawi. Malawi farmers use to burn their fields in order to make way for the next crop. Previously, this method was not as impactful as now since there was a lot of land to go round. However with enhancement in population, this method has lost its viability (Ngwira et al., 2014). Burning fields damages the fertility of the soil by depriving it of the organic matter which is needed to retain water as well as nutrients. Over-usage of land is another reason behind the infertility of the soil which in turn has resulted in poor yields. Lack of measures taken by Malawi farmer has produced a constant cycle that includes low productivity of crops due to over-farming. Along with that, due to lack of viable farming areas and increasing population, plots are split up into family owned sections which are often at great distance from their homes and miles outside the villages.
It may seem that Malawi farmers themselves are responsible for their poverty since they have not taken enough steps to deal with the mentioned issue (von Maltitz et al. 2016). However, for a country with acute financial issues along with scarcity of food and education, it is quite difficult for the Malawi farmer to deal with the mentioned issue. Apart from the famines, food security and problems in the agricultural production there has been an economic differentiation in the famine area and the failed famine policies of the government. Issues in the agriculture and food security is connected with the macro economic and socio cultural contexts (Ngwira et al., 2014). In Malawi there has been sudden decline in the livelihoods of the rural population from the past decades. These are connected to the macro economic shocks, demographic pressures and weather induced shortfalls in production. There has been several socio economic changes that led to the increased vulnerability in the rural region. These include social capital erosion, deepening of poverty, decreased access to the inputs of the agriculture, impact of AIDS pandemic and neglect of smallholder agricultures.
Evolution of Poverty in Malawi
Thus, the combination of increased frequency of the natural hazards and heavy reliance on the agriculture which is rain fed has resulted in the vulnerable livelihoods in the Malawi region (Ngwira et al., 2014). The destructive magnitude of the natural hazard together with the decreased agricultural production effects the level of development of the Malawi people (Coulibaly et al. 2015). Further more vulnerability often arises from the unsustainable development and the political systems that put the life of the people at risk. In Malawi, vulnerability and poverty has been increasing steadily for many years due to the consequence of adverse climatic, economic, demographic and political stresses and shocks (Patel et al. 2015). Some of the related contributing factors includes intensified land pressure and steady population growth, degrading fertility of the soil, non agricultural income generating chances, impact of HIV/AIDS and reduced labor force and policies of the government that favors the urban populations are some of the factors contributing to the vulnerable nature ns state of the people of Malawi (Patel et al. 2015).
The Evaluation
Malawi has been experiencing never ending shortages of food. In the year 2002, the community people of south Africa faced a serious crisis of the food (Pauw, Beck and Mussa 2016). The famine of 2002 is expected to take away 300-500 lives though there lies no clear statistics on the actual figure which died due to the hunger and starvation related diseases. According to a recent survey, more than 65.5% of the population in Malawi is under the poverty level and cannot afford their minimum requirements of food and basic necessities for living on an annual basis (Fraser et al. 2016).
The constitution of Malawi states that adequate access and utilization of adequate safe and nutritional food is the basic rights of each and every individual. This emphasizes the essentiality of food to each and every human life. From the period march 2017, Malawi has been facing serious hazard related security in food and emergency in the nutrition in the context of the devastating flood of 2015 (Asfaw et al. 2015). Assistance for humanitarian relief was also initiated since the people of the Malawi need humanitarian aid. Furthermore, it has been found that the vulnerability towards the insecurity of the food tends to operate at several levels (Patel et al. 2015). Children and the old people often gets ill due to the lack of proper food and safe water, they get weak and often die in hunger. The insecurity of the food and the vulnerability tends to intensify in the absence of the social protection.
Vulnerability of the Malawi People
The changes in the climate tends to bring unexpected trends in the weather (Harou et al. 2014). There has been low rain fall in various parts of the country that tends to affect and decrease the staple production of the food in the country. The main crop of the Malawi, the maize is wilting. From the recent researches it has further been found that the food production in the recent years and the upcoming years is expected to reduce by 50% (Pauw, Beck and Mussa 2016). Furthermore 20 out of 28 districts of the country maize fields has been affected by the fall worms that resulted in the destruction of farming families since November 2017. The worm that have spread to the community agricultural fields threats the Africa’s main crop, the maize.
The World food program of the United Nations stated that the floods were one of the worst scenario in the memory of Malawi (Wise 2015). It washed away several of homes, food stocks and drowning fertile land. The prolonged period of draughts was followed by the torrential rains that reduced the yielding of the crops (von Maltitz et al. 2016). It can thus be concluded that Malawi, the country whose economy is largely dependent or reliant on the agricultural productions lost 60 percent of its harvest due to the natural disaster.
Through out the past decades, the famine has been moving in to the cycles and the food reserves have been receiving renewed attention through the world. Though there has been various declarations regarding the world food security, very little movement has been actually done till now. One of the recommendation to address the situation is the technique of food storage. This process is not knowing and there is historical evidence on the importance of food storage and how the procedure ensures security of food through out the last decades. Adaption to the technique will help the country to construct the warehouse for community storages. By this process the farmers will be able to store the excess food crops in the warehouse and utilize it in the lean season. The community warehouse is one of the essential tool for the ensurance of food security. Some of the other important recommendations to avoid the crisis includes promotion of diversification in the high valued crops instead of the maintenance of the current policies that tends to promote the maize. Besides recognition of the uncertainty and inconsistencies in the agricultural marketing operation is essential. Redefinition of the role of the national food reserve agency (NFRA) and ensuring of the suggested policies should be done. It is furthermore important to recognize the quality of agricultural stats in the Malawi, especially the figures of the national crops which has deteriorated in the current years. The government of the country should improve its regulations and policies and attract foreign aid to support the critical situation.
Recommendations for Eradicating Food Shortage in Malawi
One of the least developed countries of the world, Malawi has about 16 million people residing under the national poverty line. There are almost 46,000 children in the country, as estimated by the UNICEF who are suffering from severe malnutrition. The main source of income of the country is from the agricultural production and therefore degrading harvest and destruction of the food crop results in crisis of food and a state of natural disaster. Erratic rainfall, drought and devastating floods have tended to contribute towards life threatening situations. Furthermore, failed harvest of the essential crops and soared process are some of the adverse effect of the crisis situation. The above research analyses the possible causes of the crisis contributing to famine and death of the people in Malawi, the evidence of the causes regarding the degrading and poor quality of harvest in the country followed by some of the recommendations that can improve the situation and the lives of the residing people
References
Asfaw, S., McCarthy, N., Arslan, A., Lipper, L. and Cattaneo, A., 2015. Diversification, climate risk and vulnerability to poverty: Evidence from rural Malawi. FAO-ESA Working Paper, pp.15-02.
Chibwana, C., Fisher, M. and Shively, G., 2012. Cropland allocation effects of agricultural input subsidies in Malawi. World Development, 40(1), pp.124-133.
Chirwa, E. and Dorward, A., 2013. Agricultural input subsidies: The recent Malawi experience (p. 320). Oxford University Press.
Coulibaly, J.Y., Gbetibouo, G.A., Kundhlande, G., Sileshi, G.W. and Beedy, T.L., 2015. Responding to crop failure: Understanding farmers’ coping strategies in Southern Malawi. Sustainability, 7(2), pp.1620-1636.
Fraser, E., Legwegoh, A., Krishna, K.C., CoDyre, M., Dias, G., Hazen, S., Johnson, R., Martin, R., Ohberg, L., Sethuratnam, S. and Sneyd, L., 2016. Biotechnology or organic? Extensive or intensive? Global or local? A critical review of potential pathways to resolve the global food crisis. Trends in Food Science & Technology, 48, pp.78-87.
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Ngwira, A., Johnsen, F.H., Aune, J.B., Mekuria, M. and Thierfelder, C., 2014. Adoption and extent of conservation agriculture practices among smallholder farmers in Malawi. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, 69(2), pp.107-119.
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von Maltitz, G., Gasparatos, A., Fabricius, C., Morris, A. and Willis, K., 2016. Jatropha cultivation in Malawi and Mozambique: impact on ecosystem services, local human well-being, and poverty alleviation. Ecology and Society, 21(3).
Wise, T.A., 2015. Two roads diverged in the food crisis: Global policy takes the one more travelled. Canadian Food Studies/La Revue canadienne des études sur l’alimentation, 2(2), pp.9-16.
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