How did Malawi go from famine-plagued to food exporter?

While steady rains have undoubtedly helped, that's not the whole answer. Over the past couple of years, Malawi has broken with an orthodoxy long advocated by Canada and other Western donor nations: The impoverished country has gone back to subsidizing poor farmers. Condemned by donors as an impediment to the development of a sustainable agricultural sector, the subsidies have been a raging success.

“What is different [this year] is the access to inputs,” explained Patrick Kabambe, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security. “People are so poor they use recycled seed and no fertilizer. They can't meet their needs that way and they grow no surplus. People sink deeper and deeper into poverty. It's a vicious cycle. We had to do something.”

Starting in 2006, and on a larger scale this year, the government distributed coupons to low-income farmers to allow them to purchase 50-kilogram sacks of fertilizer for 950 kwacha ($7) rather than the market price of 4,500 kwacha. As a result, the average farmer's yield jumped to two tonnes a hectare from 800 kilograms.

The fertilizer subsidy cost the government $62-million – 6.5 per cent of the total government budget, a “whack of cash” in the words of one top economist – but that pales in comparison to the $120-million the government spent importing food aid in the 2005 famine. And the sale of maize to Zimbabwe and other countries will inject an additional $120-million into the national economy, a sizable figure here.

[ 12 October 2007: Message edited by: Geneva ]

Famine followed.

Now Malawi is defying the neoliberal globalizers and reinstating the agricultural subsidies it requires in order for its people to survive.

Chalk up one less victim of Canadian foreign "aid".

[ 12 October 2007: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

Lots of popel on bable , ahave argued taht there are no feasible options for US in the global south.

I think the Case of Malawi, has show that what we have been saying, are not just pie in the sky solutions. But are in fact concrete solutions, that can have Amazingly positive effects on peoples lives.

The whole IMF, WORLDBANk, G8 and yes that Includes Canadas, mode of assistance, is nothing more but the same old attempt to profit of our misery.

Good news can be news

BELLA LAM
October 15, 2007

Toronto -- It is refreshing to have a good-news story coming out of Africa. I wholeheartedly agree that the government of Malawi should be accountable to its own citizens rather than setting donor-driven policies. However, the idea of subsidizing fertilizers should be debated. It may provide bigger harvests in the short term, but most synthetic fertilizers reduce soil fertility in the long run. It then becomes a vicious cycle of needing to apply more fertilizers, which in turn further worsen soil fertility.