Act on ailing food industry, urges CSO
The country’s food industry is facing serious structural issues that need urgent action to avoid perpetuating the vulnerability of low-income earners, Civil Society Coalition on Right to Food has warned.
With food inflation at 41.2 percent as of July, according to the National Statistical Office (NSO), coupled with the onset of the lean period, the coalition sees signs of stress in the production sector. It says there is need for corrective measures.
In a statement, the coalition says despite having comprehensive policies and strategies such as the National Agriculture Policy, National Multisector Nutrition Policy, Food Security Policy and National Resilience Strategy governing the country’s food systems and defining the political priorities to end hunger and nutrition insecurity, the policy instruments are not effectively implemented.
Reads the statement in part: “This is due to low stakeholder awareness of the policies, low public investment and lack of demonstrable political will, rendering them ineffective in transforming the food and nutrition security situation.
“Further, the policies lack coherence, thereby having low public sector collaboration towards their implementation.”
The country’s food system contributes about 49 percent to the gross domestic product (GDP)while employing 83 percent of the available workforce, according to Food Systems Profile by Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
Reads the FAO report: “However, with a population set to double over the next 30 years and production systems constrained by low productivity and diversity, it is clear that food systems will require substantial overhauls.”
This year, Malawi produced 2.9 million metric tonnes (MT) of maize against the national requirement of 3.2m MT.
With maize contributing over 51 percent of food inflation in Malawi, its production and supply is critical to the country’s food situation and the coalition has since called for enactment of the long awaited Food and Nutrition Bill.
The coalition’s chairperson Andrew Kambwiri said in an interview yesterday that interventions such as Affordable Inputs Programme (AIP) needs reforms to stop targeting the poorest with no capacity to produce.
He also said the megafarms initiative to boost production should not be too dependent on rain-fed agriculture, but should see more investment in the development of irrigation systems.
In a separate interview yesterday, agriculture policy development expert Tamani Nkhono Mvula said the country’s agriculture sector structure has about 80 percent production under subsistence farming, which is not sustainable given the emerging climate change challenges and cost of production.
“If we can push commercial production to at least 50 percent of the sector that would be sustainable, otherwise the dependence on subsistence farming will not help to transform the agriculture sector,” he said.
On his part, Civil Society Agriculture Network programmes officer Maziko Nkhulembe suggested a long-term development of local production of fertiliser and promotion of organic fertilisers for self-sustaining production capacity.
“The government must resolutely promote the development and implementation of relevant policies and programmes that are aligned to the voluntary guidelines on the right to food,” he said.
Minister of Agriculture Sam Kawale said there were considerable investments being done to transform the country’s food systems through various initiatives by the public and private sector and donor community.
Agriculture remains the country’s mainstay, contributing about 25 percent to GDP and 80 perecent to foreign exchange earnings, according to the NSO.
