Agriculture in Malawi - Food Shortages - After Independence

After Independence

No famines occurred for over forty years after 1949: from approximately 1950 to 1980 Malawi, like much of inter-tropical Africa, enjoyed adequate and reliable rains. Food security seemed assured: the only years when consumption exceeded production were in 1963, 1970, 1975, 1976 and 1980 and none were as serious as 1949 or later shortages. ref name="Smale">M Smale and P W Heisey, (1997) Maize Technology and Productivity in Malawi, p. 65. In 1961, in the approach to independence, the colonial-era marketing boards were replaced by the Farmers Marketing Board with wide powers to buy, sell and process farm products, promote price stability and subsidise seed and fertilizer prices. Before 1969, it made no profits from its purchasing monopoly, but after this the Farmers Marketing Board and its successor, the Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (ADMARC), created in 1971, profited significantly. Smallholders had to support the high operating costs of ADMARC, much of whose income came from underpaying them. ADMARC only re-invested 5% of funds in smallholder farms, but subsidised tobacco estates, so that by the mid-1980s, it diverted two-thirds of its income to estates. Until 1979, it had sound finances: when tobacco prices collapsed, its lack of liquidity threatened its main creditors, Malawi’s two commercial banks. From 1980, Malawi’s rainfall tended to decrease and fall for shorter periods. As its rural population grew, food production only exceeded consumption in 1993 and annual maize consumption fell from 240 kilos in the 1960s to 160 kilos in the 1990s: this deficiency was only remedied by large increases in the root crop harvest after 1995. There was a paradox: Malawi’s maize exports indicated food sufficiency, but increasing malnutrition did not.

Smallholders were discouraged from growing tobacco in favour of maize. Growing maize as a cash crop requires reasonable sale prices, low input costs (particularly fertilizer) and farmers having some financial reserves. Farm incomes were declining by 1976 and, from 1981 to 1986, the real value of Malawi maize producer prices fell to 40% to 60% of those of other Central and East African states. Even with low fertilizer prices, maize growing was difficult. From 1971, ADMARC subsidised fertilizer prices for every farmer. Estates benefited most, as tobacco needs more fertilizer than maize, and few smallholders could buy enough fertilizer, even if subsidised. After 1985, declining world tobacco prices and supporting the estates made ADMARC insolvent. The Malawi government agreed to partially privatise it to obtain World Bank loans, which required a phased but complete elimination of fertilizer subsidies. These subsidies decreased from 30.5% in 1983/84 to nothing in 1988/89, which prevented most smallholders from buying fertilizer. Between 1989/90 and 1994/95, subsidies were twice restored and twice removed. Privatisation left ADMARC short of funds to supply fertilizer and seed to smallholders, and it was unable to give credit. All these factors increased the possibility of food shortages and lessened the ability of government or smallholders to cope with them. After its privatisation, ADMARC had to support Mozambican refugees, who numbered over 500,000 by 1988, but it could not replenish its stocks from the poor harvests of the late 1980s. Cassava pests, rare before 1987, severely depleted this main alternative to maize. It only needed a significant fall in rainfall to cause a crisis.

Malawi's rainfall in 1989-90 and 1990-91 was at best moderate and locally poor. Smallholder food reserves were depleted before the deeper crisis in 1991-92. Rainfall before planting in 1991 was low and sporadic; withdrawing fertilizer subsidies made a poor harvest poorer. Only 40% of the normal maize crop was gathered in 1992. The famines of the 1990s represent exceptional food shortfalls within longer periods of increasing shortages. Although rainfall or agricultural output data do exist for 1991 and 1992, there are few contemporary accounts of a 1992 famine. This is because President Banda suppressed discussion about food insecurity and information on malnutrition. After he was voted from office a better-documented drought occurred in 1993-94. J Milner, (2004). Agriculture and Rural Development in Malawi: the Role of Policies and Policy Processes, p 42. There are no generally available or accepted figure for famine deaths in 1992. Apart from the lack of rainfall, the main causes of famine in the 1990s include the state regulation of agriculture and the distortions caused by diverting resources to inefficient estates and failure to support smallholders growing food crops. This intensified pressure on food-growing land without providing an alternative way for poorer Malawians to earn a living' as ADMARC failed to pay reasonable prices for the crops that farmers had to grow. Although the withdrawal of fertilizer subsidies exacerbated agricultural decline, its seeds lay in government policies since 1968 or earlier. Many poorer tenants and squatters relied on food-for-work arrangements or casual paid labour on the estates to supplement the limited food they could grow, and this short-term rural casual work paid for in in kind called ganyu became a way of life for an increasing number of poorer Malawians.

After erratic rainfall and poor harvests in 1997 and 1998 maize stocks were low and consumer prices: ADMARC had to release reserves and import maize to prevent famine. However, both the 1999 and 2000 harvests were excellent, at over 2 million tonnes of maize, with large sweet potato and cassava crops. However, it appeared that Southern Africa was entering a decade of subnormal rains and 1997 and 1998 were a foretaste of this. The harvests of 2001, 2002 and 2003 were disappointing, that of 2004 was severely deficient in maize and in root crops; the next satisfactory harvest was in 2005. Average rainfall was light in the 2000/01 and 2003/04 growing seasons, locally high in 2001/02 and 2002/03: it was characterised by too much or too little rain at the wrong time or place. Between 2001 and 2004, Malawi produced more food in than in 1992 or 1994, but as its population was much higher, more maize had to be imported, and difficulty obtaining imports created internal food shortages in these years. Rural poverty increased and by 2005, about 14% of Malawian adult were HIV positive. Disabilities and deaths from AIDS may have discouraged growing labour-intensive tobacco or maize in favour of cassava, reducing family incomes and coping resources.

Poor families were those with less than one hectare of land, or whose adults consumed less than 200 kilos of maize each year; they formed 55% of the population in 1989, including most smallholders. This included 20% of families with less than half a hectare or adults eating less than 133 kilos of maize (the ultra-poor). By 2003, 72% were poor, 41% ultra-poor: many were estate labourers or tenants, or in female-headed households. Many were malnourished, consuming only 1,818 daily calories (1,165 calories for the ultra-poor). Families with half a hectare or less relied on casual labouring (often food-for-work, termed "ganyu") and with those dispossessed by estate formation made up a virtually landless underclass. In congested parts of the Shire Highlands, the poorest 65% had only 0.2 hectare. As 95% of all suitable, and some marginal, land was already cultivated, land shortages could only intensify. Labour and fertilizer shortages or costs prevented poor households from growing Burley tobacco. For these, market liberalisation removed the safety net that subsidies had previously given. As fertilizer costs increased, in poor years the earnings of many smaller Burley growers did not meet the costs of production or allow purchases of extra food. Most tobacco growers reserved only 0.3 to 0.5 hectare to grow food, insufficient for family needs in some years.

After the 1992 famine, foreign aid was made conditional on re-establishing political liberalisation. The privatised ADMARC received limited state funding to create a Strategic Grain Reserve of 180,000 tonnes to stabilise prices for farmers and consumers and had to use commercial loans to import large quantities of maize each year in the 1990s. From 1997, after criticism from the World Bank that ADMARC was subsidising imports of maize, ADMARC lost responsibility for this, controlling only domestically-produced grain. The Malawi government required it to buy domestic maize at a fixed minimum price to support farmers, and this forced ADMARC to sell its strategic reserve in 1997, and again in 2000 to pay off its commercial loans, creating insecurity.

Although universal fertilizer subsidies had been abolished in 1995, the Malawi government arranged for 2.86 million smallholders to receive free Starter Packs both in 1998 and 1999. Each contained enough hybrid maize seed and fertilizer to plant 0.1 hectare and produce between 125 to 175 kilos of maize, enough to feed a family for a month. Perhaps unfortunately, the 1999 and 2000 harvests were good and foreign aid donors criticised the scheme which, although it added an estimated 499,000 tonnes and 354,000 tonnes respectively to those two maize harvests, did not target only the poorest smallholders, and cost as much for each pack as the market value of the maize produced. A Targeted Inputs Programme (TIP) of maize seed and a little fertilizer was aimed at the very poor in 2001 and 2002, but 1.5 million TIP packs each year produced little maize because they were issued too late in the planting season. Although Starter Packs had been withdrawn just before these two year of poor harvests, delays and bad weather were the main causes of food shortages not reducing pack numbers or content.

Malawi was increasingly dependent on imported maize in deficit years, but ADMARC had started selling domestic reserves in 2000, the year after a good harvest, but continued in 2001: some maize was exported at low prices. Failure to prevent food shortages is shown by estimated deaths from hunger and related diseases', for which there was a credible report of over 1,000 deaths, compared to the 100 to 200 estimated for 1949. Although 1992 famine deaths were not fully reported, they were probably far less than in 2002.

Following a bad maize harvest in 2005, almost five million of Malawi's 13 million people needed emergency food aid during the Malawian food crisis. Bingu wa Mutharika, Malawi’s newly elected president, decided to subsidize agricultural inputs such as fertilizer by reinstating and increasing fertilizer subsidies despite skepticism from the United States and Britain.

Malawi’s soil is depleted, like that of other local countries. Many of its farmers could not afford fertilizer at the then-current market prices. Bingu wa Mutharika declared he did not get elected to rule a nation of beggars. After initially failing to persuade the World Bank and other donors to help subsidize green revolution inputs, the president decided to spend $58 million from Malawi's own reserves to provide seeds and fertilizers to the poorest farmers.The World Bank eventually endorsed a scheme to allow the poorest 1.3 million farm families to buy three kilograms of hybrid maize and two 50-kilogram bags of fertilizer at a third of the market price. Following a bumper harvest in 2007, Malawi sold more maize to the World Food Program of the United Nations than any other southern Africa country, and exported hundreds of thousands of tons of corn to Zimbabwe. The success of these subsidies caused some re-examination of the role of agriculture in helping poor in Africa, and of government investment in basic components of farming, such as fertilizer, improved seed, farmer education, credit and agricultural research. Despite this, the UN Food and Agriculture Agency recorded that in the period 2010-12, 23.1% of the population were under-nourished, almost the same percentage was recorded for the whole period from 2004 to 2009, and only a slight fall from the 26.8% in 1999-2001

Although Malawi enjoyed ample rains in early 2011 and a good harvest, long spells of dry weather in January and February 2012 caused reduced food crop production in parts of central and southern Malawi, which resulted in food deficits in poor households in the areas affected, requiring humanitarian support from December 2012. These food deficits required the release of 47,600 tonnes of maize from the government Strategic Grain Reserve.