Malawi among food secure nations
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has placed Malawi among top three best performing countries in Southern Africa in terms of agriculture production in 2014.
FAO sub-region coordinator for Southern Africa, David Phiri, shared the news on Saturday in Lilongwe during a breakfast interaction with journalists at Wamkulu Palace to share the outcomes of extra-ordinary meeting for Agriculture and food security and a joint meeting between ministers responsible for agriculture and health in Sadc.
Phiri said only South Africa and Tanzania have beaten Malawi in producing cereals as the two countries are ranked first and second, respectively.
“In 2014, we expect that Malawi will be third biggest producer of cereals in the sub-region and that is no mean feat for a small area like Malawi. It means that the country must be doing something right,” he said.
Maize is Malawi’s major cereal and staple food and the country largely depends on agriculture which supports livelihoods of 80 percent of the country’s total population.
Phiri largely attributed Malawi’s strides in agriculture production in recent years to the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (Fisp) which he said has provided the minimum that smallholder farmers want to survive and to go beyond survival by increasing their production.
“So, the subsidy programme has played an important role in making sure that Malawi is a star in the sub-region with regard to agriculture production,” he added.
According to Phiri, no major country in the world has ever developed without using agriculture as a base and that none of those developed has not developed agriculture even to date.
He added: “Malawi has been an envy of many countries in Africa in terms of agriculture and Malawi should be proud of some of its policies that have enabled to grow agriculture sector.
He said it is a fact that in most countries, Malawi inclusive, urban areas are struggling to produce enough and decent jobs hence imperative for governments in the sub-region to spur agriculture sector growth for people to have good living standards.
Phiri said this year, cereal production in Southern Africa is expected to increase by 12 percent from last year but lamented that the region is performing poorly in the area of nutrition indicators citing 30 percent of children as being stunted.
Christopher Manyamba-Institute for Food, Nutrition and Well Being, University of Pretoria.
During the SADC Ministers of Agriculture and Food Security conference which recently took place in Malawi, the FAO placed Malawi among the top three best performing countries in Southern
Africa in terms of agriculture production in 2014. This national production has
unfortunately been interpreted as food security. High maize production in the face of abject poverty and chronic food insecurity is no reason to blow a trumpet in Malawi.
Malawi signed the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP)
Compact in 2010, has in place National Agricultural Investment Plan, Food
Security (2006) and Nutrition Policies (2011), allocates more than 10% of the
national annual budget to agriculture and implements the Fertilizer Input
Subsidy Programme (FISP). Poverty
reduction and food security remain the central policy challenge in Malawi. The
Malawi Constitution recognises the right to food, while the Malawi’s Growth and
Development Strategy (MGDS) recognizes that food security is a prerequisite for
sustained economic growth and poverty reduction. Despite these sound
policies, Malawi has remained a food insecure
nation at household level (MDHS, 2010, FAO, 2013; FEWSNET, 2013; WDI, 2013).Misinformation on the population’s
food insecurity may affect Government and international organisations’ decision
making and food security interventions, a disadvantage to the poor.
The definition of food security was officially endorsed at the 2009 Declaration of the World Summit on Food Security (CFS, 2012), and points to the availability, utilization, access and stability dimensions. Malawi’s food security is generally defined in terms of adequate production of and access to maize, the country’s staple crop. However, national production or yield of maize does not translate into household food security and should not at all cost be interpreted as food security. For instance, Malawi has in the past 10 years
achieved the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP)
2000 kilogrammes per hectare target, but has remained food insecure at
household level. Many households experience an annual
hunger season between November and March, which occurs during the planting and
sole rainy season in months prior to the main harvest (Feed the Future, 2012).
The UN reported more than 1.63 million people, or 11 per cent of the
population, were facing severe food shortages in January 2013 (WFP, 2013). More
than half of the children under five are stunted and almost one in five show
signs of wasting due to under-nutrition (FAO, 2013; World Bank, 2013; National
Statistics Office and ICF Macro, 2011).
In summary, evidence of household food security status in Malawi should not be
informed by national maize yield or production figures obtained from crop
estimates. While it is widely accepted that no single food security measure is perfect, the National Statistical Office’s Integrated Household Survey, Welfare Monitoring Survey, and the Demographic
Health Surveys provide official statistics that reflect household food security
and nutrition status in Malawi. Enhanced interpretability of these statistics and
authenticity are crucial in creating the most effective and sustainable interventions
to attain long-term sustainable livelihoods and food security.