Malawi is facing growing pressure to rethink its fertiliser-dependent farming model as climate change, declining soil health and rising input costs raise concerns over the long-term sustainability of the country’s food systems.
Government officials, researchers and agroecology advocates meeting in Lilongwe on Wednesday said recurring food insecurity, environmental degradation and weak fertiliser efficiency were exposing structural weaknesses in Malawi’s agriculture sector while increasing pressure on public finances and foreign exchange reserves.
The discussions took place during a regional agroecology forum organised by the Seed and Knowledge Initiative alongside partners including Scope Malawi, Biodiversity Conservation Initiative and Soils, Food and Healthy Communities.
Ministry of Agriculture deputy director of Land Resources MacPherson Nthala said Malawi’s agriculture sector was under strain from climate shocks, rising pest outbreaks and worsening land degradation despite years of heavy fertiliser use.
“Despite years of using inorganic fertilisers, we see that the yields are still declining,” said Nthala.
“We need to transform our agriculture sector, and agroecology is at the centre of transforming the agriculture system in Malawi.”
Nthala said the country’s farming systems had become increasingly unsustainable due to high fertiliser costs, declining soil health and dependence on external agricultural inputs.
Seed and Knowledge Initiative director Lindy Morrison said collaboration between governments, researchers, farmers and communities would be critical in transforming food systems and scaling agroecology.
“The transformation to agroecology is not going to happen through individual contributions,” said Morrison.
“The food system has never been under such threat, from climate change, environmental degradation and biodiversity destruction.”
Morrison said local farmer knowledge needed to be recognised alongside academic research to build resilient and sustainable food systems capable of withstanding climate shocks.
“The solution is in Africa. The solution is there in communities,” she said.
Nthala said Malawi currently has no agroecology policy despite growing debate around nature-based farming systems and sustainable agriculture.
The concerns come amid mounting scrutiny over the effectiveness of Malawi’s costly fertiliser subsidy programmes.
A multi-country study published last year by the International Food Policy Research Institute found that Malawian farmers produce only 4–7 kilogrammes of maize per kilogramme of nitrogen applied, compared to more than 15kg in countries such as Ghana and Nigeria where subsidies are less dominant.
The study, titled ‘Maize Yield Responsiveness and Profitability of Fertiliser: New Survey Evidence from Six African Countries’, questioned the long-term sustainability and profitability of Malawi’s input-heavy agricultural model.
Mwapata Institute research fellow Christone Nyondo warned in the study that growing dependence on government fertiliser procurement risked weakening private agricultural markets.
“The numbers simply don’t add up anymore,” said Nyondo.
“We sell fertiliser at full price to estates and commercial farmers, but the majority of smallholder demand is now dependent on government procurement. If this trend continues, the private market could collapse entirely.”
Participants at the forum argued that improving soil health, diversifying crops and reducing reliance on imported synthetic fertilisers could strengthen resilience while easing pressure on foreign exchange reserves.
Aaron Moyo, a farmer from Mzimba and an early adopter of agroecological farming methods, said reducing fertiliser imports could help lower forex demand while improving local food security.
“Let the farmers try the agroecology way of farming,” said Moyo. “The opportunities are immense.”
Moyo said intercropping and diversified farming systems had improved productivity and resilience compared to conventional monocropping systems.
