Q & A

‘NO POLITICAL WILL TO DEVELOP AGRICULTURE’

Agriculture, Malawi’s economic mainstay continues to face various challenges one of which is erratic public funding towards growing the sector. Our Staff Reporter FATSANI GUNYA talks to the chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources Felix Jumbe. He highlights the opportunities lying ahead for the country’s agricultural sector.

Jumbe: Africa is beehive of poverty character
Jumbe: Africa is beehive of poverty character

 

Excerpts

Q

:Parliament rose sine die two weeks ago. As chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources, how do you rate deliberations in the just-ended sitting as regards growing the country’s agriculture?    

Q

:The just-ended budget session left much to be desired in terms of making our agriculture begin to tick again. Preoccupation on food security has overshadowed the agriculture sector potential as an economic development sector. Our investment is disoriented towards the key priorities of the sector like productivity, market development, technology absorption and others. Instead, we are focusing on food alone. At 51 years as an independent State, it is a pity that we only live to feed ourselves with no ambitions to dominate on regional export and income generation from agriculture. The expenditure on recurrent budget items is overshadowing the capital investment expenditure needed. Malawi has more of PhD holders today than in 1964 but all disoriented into poverty alleviation philosophy.

 

Q

: To help grow the sector to realise food and nutrition security, apart from improving livelihoods in the country, government established the Green Belt Initiative (GBI). Would you say it is Malawi’s answer to perennial hunger although we were once considered Africa’s food basket?

A

: The GBI is one of Malawi’s brilliant concepts that aim at bringing water to where farmers can use it to grow different crops, but the concept is suffering narrowed conceptualisation and the smallholder syndrome that disorients commercial farming and narrows the planning horizon. The concept needs to go back to the drawing boards at the moment it is one of the top show talks that the country has ever has with no targetable results on the ground.

 

Q

: We hear the project continues to get erratic funding allocation by Parliament to the extent that the Chikwawa Green Belt project in Salima is failing to take off because of a K2 billion deficit. Why is it that way when we continue preaching that agriculture is the country’s economic mainstay?

A

: The challenge is that we are living in the era of poverty alleviation planning framework as advocated by the World Bank after collapsing the economy with their World Bank Structure Adjustment Programme. And we suffer from the new type of leadership that does not have the background of what used to work and the lazy mind programme to implement is food security investment in the short run like Farm Imput Subsidy Programme (Fisp) and no further than that. I am sure the leadership perceives like they are doing enough but it is far from real.

 

Q

: Recently, you were quoted as saying that the African culture is a beehive for poverty character. Can you please put this in the context of Malawi’s agro-driven economy?

A

: Indeed, African culture is a beehive for poverty character and has been worsened by the hand-out syndrome promoted by poverty alleviation advocates.

In terms of agriculture, our cultural heritage is farming for food and not trade. Once you have a granary full of maize grain, then you are done and ready to marry and live your primitive life full of satisfaction and next is to produce as many children as you can. High population with little skills and purchasing power is a liability and a cause of poverty as it exerts pressure on resources and flashing out poverty. The farming we do culturally is a cause for poverty and there is high resistance to adoption of new technologies like fertilisers, seeds and herbicides, not to mention mechanisation. The whole resistance to the new Land Bill is due to cultural or customary land beliefs which will restrict commercialisation. At the end of the day we have two people who are left confused not knowing which systems to follow: traditional systems with respect to maintenance of cultural values or government economic systems with respect to economic rationality that resources are always scarce and we need to manage them with better technologies. So the citizen and the top leadership is in a dilemma.

A case in point is the issue of banning chiefs in towns and cities. Some feel this will cut some cultural ties, yet these chiefs have at times been a hindrance to development. Africa remains one of the poorest continents despite its abundant resources and cultural richness. You can, therefore, draw the strong correlation between poverty and culture. Culture is a key contributor to our thinking process and the decisions we make every day. The cumulative effect of the decisions we make every day lead to poverty or wealth creation.

 

Q

: But most of the maize in the country is produced by smallholder farmers who, according to the latest statistics from the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), on average, harvest two metric tonnes per hectare as compared to commercial farmers in South Africa who produce almost 10 times as much. Do you think it is time we went commercial with our farming?

A

: We do not have a choice, with pressure from our ever-increasing population.

Malawi will have a population of 30 million in the next 50 years, the land remains the same or smaller in size with some road and infrastructure constructions, hence adoption of high producing technologies in maize is not an option for Malawi but a do or die situation. Our land on maize is 1.5 million hectares on average producing three million metric tonnes, which is just enough to feed ourselves. With better technologies and on metrical approach we should be able to produce 15 million tonnes or more and be able to feed the increasing population from the same. We must begin to learn the skills of commercial agriculture now because such skills as well will take time to acquire.

 

Q

: Malawi used to be a net exporter, which made the kwacha strong. Politics aside, is there anything government ought to learn as regards financing the sector from the Kamuzu Banda era and where did we go wrong to end becoming a largely importing nation?

A

: In 1993, our exports were $310 million (about K140 billion) and imports were

$265 million (about K119 billion) with a positive trade balance of $45 million (about K20 billion). This, indeed made our currency strong and the current leaders can learn by looking at how Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda controlled the imports and promoted the exports from agriculture. For your information, we exported a lot of rice in 1979 and today we are even importing rice into this country. The current leadership can also learn how Kamuzu used to finance smallholder farmers input and output markets and commercial farmers through the banks. The policy, legislative and regulatory framework is also worth coping. I, however, have doubt the ability to learn by the current leadership from the past die to political pride.

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