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gRAIn

Unravelling the“miracle” of Malawi’s greenrevolution

alawi has recently been hailedas the “miracle” o Arica and arole model or other countries. Ater our years o chronic oodshortages, Malawi turned itsel around and started producing enough maize toull its national requirements in 2006 and even toexport maize in 2007. The reason or theturnaround? According to the Alliance or a GreenRevolution in Arica (AGRA), the biotech corporategiant Monsanto, and US economist Jerey Sachs,the Malawi miracle came about because thegovernment ollowed the green revolution model,subsidising the distribution o chemical ertilisersand hybrid maize seeds. The Malawi story hasbecome a very powerul marketing tool or theirpromotion o a new green revolution in Arica.Others praise the government or deying itsoreign donors, and giving direct support to smallarmers. The government pumped millions o dollars into its programme to provide armers with vouchers or subsidised maize seeds and ertilisers,and armers responded by increasing production

1 M. Nyekanyeka and A.Daudi,

Malawi: RenewedMaize Surplus

, Government of Malawi report, October 2008.

Malawi’s ree revolutio success story has bee lauded aroud the world.While it is ood to see a overmet ivesti i local food productio, it isdoubtful whether the achievemets will be sustaiable uless radical chaesare implemeted. Above all, lad eeds to be redistributed so that farmershave holdis that are bi eouh to produce surpluses, ad the overmeteeds to move away from its arrow focus o chemical fertlisers ad hybridmaize seeds.

Enough is enough. I am not going to go on my knees to beg for food. Let us grow the food ourselves.

Bingu wa Mutharika, President o Malawi, 4 June 2008

gRAIn would like to

thankChimwemweA.P.S.(CAPS)MsukwaforhisinvaluablehelpasguideandinterpreterduringourvisittoMalawi.

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signicantly. No one can dispute the dramaticimpact the programme has had on boostingdomestic ood production. It is a testament to what can be achieved when a government investsin its armers.But Malawi’s success story does not go muchurther than that, and it is also important to keepin mind that the increase in maize production isdramatic compared with the 2002–4 crisis, butnot so dramatic when compared with averagesover decades. It is not a new model, neither is it amodel or resolving the country’s or the continent’scomplex problems o hunger and poverty, as some would have us believe. Rather, the government’sprogramme has beneted rom a ew exceptionally good years o weather, but it is beset in the longterm by limitations that, i not addressed, willdoom any good intentions to ailure. The threemost important limitations are: the pressing issueo access to land, the reliance on costly importedinputs, and their impact on the soil.

Malawi’s 30-year ree revolutio, adcouti

When Malawi gained independence in the mid-1960s, the government o President HastingsKamuzu Banda inherited an agriculture structuresplit between commercial estates, which dominatedthe production o tobacco, tea, sugar and othercash crops, and smallholder arms producingmainly or subsistence. The government did littleto alter the colonial patterns o power. Its policiescontinued to avour exporters and its land reormsonly urthered the expansion o estates on tocommunal land, turning the rightul occupantsinto tenants and generating a new class o landlesspeople. Peasants were also pushed o their land by the state to make way or wildlie parks and other“protected areas”, which have mainly served tosupport tourism. Between 1967 and 1994 morethan one million hectares o customary lands heldby local communities were transerred to the stateand to commercial estate owners.Even though Malawi’s economy grew duringthe 30 years o Banda’s regime, and the country was mostly sel-sucient in maize, these macro-economic gures mask the sel-enrichment o the political elite and the escalating poverty o Malawi’s rural population.

During the 1980s the World Bank and IMF started imposing structuraladjustment programmes on Arica; in Malawi thismeant phasing out subsidies or ertilisers and maizeseeds, and removing price controls, creating a very volatile maize market. Less ood was produced, itbecame more expensive, and a ood crisis was inthe making. In 1987, the government was orcedto start importing maize in a big way.

At the sametime, the local currency was continually devalued,making ertilisers unaordable or most armers.But Malawi’s government, without ever putting inplace a coherent, long-term ood security strategy,could never completely abandon state interventionbecause it requently had to react to recurring naturaldisasters and droughts. Between 1987 and 1995,subsidised ertiliser and hybrid seed programmes were again put in place. The devastating droughtso 1991 and 1993 reduced maize production by hal, and, to add to the pressure, a million reugeesarrived rom Mozambique. By 1994 donorpressure to liberalise the markets intensied againand subsidies were scaled down, the credit marketcollapsed, ood expenditure doubled and structural vulnerability intensied. Selling their labour ormiserable wages to estate owners became one o the key strategies or the poor to make ends meet,but being a labourer on someone else’s land (

ganyu

)meant that they did not have time to work theirown land adequately, so yields ell.

2 More than 60% of Malawi’s people are classiedas chronically poor; lifeexpectancy has been falling from 48 years in 1990 tobelow 40, because of theHIV/Aids pandemic andincreasing levels of povertyand inequality.3 Jane Harrigan, “Foodinsecurity, poverty and theMalawian Starter Pack: Freshstart or false start?”, in

FoodPolicy

, Vol. 33, No. 3, June2008, 237–49. Abstract available at http://tinyurl.com/yaemcmg

Enoch Chione, a smallholder in Ekwendeni, northern Malawi, with his sorghum.He also intercrops maize with pigeon pea and other plants in order to improve soil fertility (see Box 5)

P h o t o : G R A I N

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The 1990s and early 2000s were characterisedby a number o ad hoc, reactive projects by government and donors to subsidise ertilisersand hybrid seeds. US donor intervention alwaysaimed at stimulating the private seed and ertilisersector, and i a programme did not achieve this astenough, it was changed, regardless o the impacton armers.Then drought, foods and hunger struck again in theperiod 2002–5. What is important to understandabout this dramatic period is that it was largely ahuman-made disaster, the result o extremely baddonor policies and a corrupt government thatsold o the country’s grain reserves and ditheredin responding to the crisis. Since independence,successive governments had overseen decades

Table 1: Malawi’s rollercoaster gree Revolutio itervetios sice the early 1970s

DateProrammenumber of affected ad umber ofbeeciariesDisasters ad cost

1970–1980s Statecontroloveragriculturalinputs,subsidised20–60%ofcostBenetbetterofffarmers,marginalisepoorUpto3%ofnationalbudget1981–90 Structuraladjustment(SAP),subsidiesreduced.1987–90 SubsidiesFoodAid1.4–2.8millionpeopleaffected Drought1990–91 Shifttosmallholdertobaccoproduction–USAIDfundstransitionfrommaizetotobaccoEconomicstraticationaccelerates,maizeproductiondown.1992–93 FoodAidtomillionsDroughtRecoveryInputsProject(DRIP)5–7millionpeopleaffected1.3milliongivenseedsandfertilisersSouthernAfricandrought+1millionrefugeesfromMozambique1994 Subsidiesdiscontinued 3millionpeopleaffectedandreceivefoodaidDrought1994–96 SupplementaryInputsProject Upto800,000peryearreceivesubsidies1996–97 400,000affected Floods1998–2000StarterPack–allsmallholdersreceiveseedandfertiliserfor0.1ha2.8millionreceivesubsidiesperseasonUS$20–25millionSurplusproduction,2.5MTmaizeperseason2000–2002 Donorpressure–scaledowntoTargetedInputProgrammethat targetsspecicfarmers(10–20%offertilisersubsidised).1–2millionreceivesubsidiesperyear2002:thousandsdieofhungerUS$7.5–13millionGoodproductionin2000–2001,buterraticrainandoodsin20022003–5ExtendedTargetedInputProgramme1.7–2millionreceivesubsidies5millionpeoplehungryUS$12million2005–6 AgricultureInputSubsidyProgramme(75%subsidyoffertilisersandmaizeseed)1.3millionreceivevouchers MK5.6billionNodonorsupport2006–7 AgricultureInputSubsidyProgramme1.7millionreceivevouchers MK7.5billionUS$91million2007–8 AgricultureInputSubsidyProgramme2.2millionreceivevouchers1.5millionfoodinsecurebecauseofhighpricesMK12billionUS$200millionSurplusproduction2008–9 AgricultureInputSubsidyProgramme1.7millionreceivevouchers1.5millionclassiedasvulnerableMK17.8billion2009–10 AgricultureInputSubsidyProgramme140,000receivefoodaid 39%reducedbudgetforAISP

Source:Jane arrigan, Food insecurity, poverty and the Malawian Starter Pack: Fresh start or false start, inJanearrigan,Foodinsecurity,povertyandtheMalawianStarterPack:Freshstartorfalsestart,in

FoodPolicy

,Vol.33,No.3,June2008,237–49.Abstractavailableathttp://tinyurl.com/yaemcmg� supplemented with data from�supplementedwithdatafrom

Malawi:RenewedMaizeSurplus

,MalawiGovernmentreport,October2008andEM-DAT:TheOFDA/CREDInternationalDisasterDatabase,UniversitéCatholiquedeLouvain,Brussels,Belgium.