Twenty years ago, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (Agra) was founded on a simple but ambitious conviction: that Africa could and must transform its agriculture.
As we mark Agra@20, that conviction remains as relevant to Malawi as it was when the organisation was established in 2006.
Agriculture is the backbone of Malawi’s economy and the principal source of livelihoods for millions of Malawians, yet too many farming households continue to face low productivity, unpredictable markets, climate shocks, rising production costs and limited access to finance.
This means that the most important question for Malawi is not simply what has been achieved over the past 20 years, but what we must do differently over the next 10 or 20 years to make agriculture work better for the people whose livelihoods depend on it.
The reflections shared during the Agra@20 convening last week, including the thought-provoking questions raised by the Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development Roza Mbilizi and Professor Richard Mkandawire, who is National Planning Commission chairperson and Mwapata Institute, provided an important opportunity to consider this challenge.
Mkandawire, for example, drew attention to the severe depletion of Malawi’s soils and the need to embrace a continental soil health action plan, alongside appropriate amendments and practices that can restore soil fertility and improve productivity. For a country whose economy depends so heavily on agriculture, this is not simply an environmental concern; it is an economic imperative.
Malawi cannot sustainably increase agricultural production while the health of the resource on which that production depends continues to deteriorate. Soil health, therefore, must become a central part of Malawi’s agricultural transformation agenda, alongside access to quality inputs, improved technologies, irrigation, extension services, finance and markets.
Over the past two decades, Agra has worked with the Government of Malawi, farmers, researchers, businesses, development partners and communities to strengthen many of these foundations. This has included supporting productivity improvements, seed and input systems, market linkages, resilient food systems and greater opportunities for private-sector participation.
The experience gained through this work has shown us that no single intervention can transform agriculture. What is required is a functioning ecosystem in which farmers can access the knowledge, inputs, finance and markets they need to produce profitably and sustainably.
This is particularly important if we are to make agriculture attractive to Malawi’s young people. Farming should not be viewed as an occupation of last resort or an activity that leaves families vulnerable to the uncertainties of each agricultural season. Agriculture and the wider agri-food system must become a viable economic opportunity in which farmers, processors, traders, aggregators, transporters and young entrepreneurs can earn predictable and sustainable incomes.
For that to happen, Malawi must increasingly move from thinking about agriculture simply in terms of production to thinking about the entire agri-food system. Producing more food is important, but so too is reducing post-harvest loss, improving storage and processing, strengthening market access, expanding value addition and ensuring that agricultural businesses can access the finance required to grow. The more value we create within Malawi’s agricultural economy, the greater the potential for agriculture to generate jobs, incomes and economic growth.
Malawi must also make better use of the agricultural knowledge that already exists within Malawi. The country’s universities, research institutions, extension workers, farmers and private-sector actors possess valuable knowledge about what works in our different farming systems and environments.
The challenge is to ensure that this knowledge moves more effectively from research institutions and demonstration plots into the hands of farmers and businesses at scale.
This requires stronger connections between research, policy and practice. It also requires us to listen more carefully to farmers themselves. Agricultural transformation cannot be designed entirely from conference rooms.
It must be informed by the realities farmers face: the cost of inputs, access to land and water, changing weather patterns, market prices, access to credit and the ability to sell what they produce at a fair return.
Enabling business environment is pivotal to attracting medium and large commercial investors in Malawi. Finance will be equally critical. Malawi cannot transform its agriculture through public resources and development assistance alone. There is need for greater private-sector investment across the agricultural value chain, but investors need confidence that risks can be identified and managed. This is where catalytic finance, blended finance, risk-sharing mechanisms and better market intelligence can help unlock investment that would otherwise remain on the sidelines.
Agra’s work increasingly focuses on using evidence from the field to help de-risk such investments. Today, 61 percent of Agra’s portfolio targets multi-year catalytic opportunities designed to de-risk private capital flows.
Across its programmes, Agra has facilitated $1.4 billion in new capital for national flagship programmes and $660 million in structured finance for agri-small and medium enterprises. The significance of these investments is ultimately not the figures themselves, but whether they translate into productive businesses, stronger markets and better livelihoods.
For Malawi, the opportunity is considerable. The country has farmers, entrepreneurs, researchers, businesses and public institutions with the capacity to build a more productive and resilient agricultural economy. Malawi needs to connect these strengths more effectively and create an environment in which agriculture becomes increasingly investable, commercially viable and resilient.
As Malawi looks ahead, however, the people should be careful not to define success by how well the achievements of the past 20 years are explained. The real test of the next 10 or 20 years will be whether the results speak for themselves. This is a point that Mbilizi emphasised during the Agra@20 convening.
There is need for Malawi where people are food-secure, where farming households have improved and more predictable livelihoods, where young people can enter agriculture and agribusiness and have money in their pockets, where agricultural enterprises grow, where private investment increases and where communities are better able to withstand economic and climate shocks.
That is the transformation we should aspire to see on the ground.
The past 20 years have given us experience, partnerships and evidence. The task now is to turn those assets into scale and lasting results for Malawians.
If we can do that, agriculture will no longer simply be the sector on which Malawi depends. It will become one of the principal engines through which Malawi builds prosperity.
And ultimately, that is how agricultural transformation should be judged, not by what we say about it, but by what Malawians experience because of it.
*Dr. Eluphy Nyirenda is Agra Malawi country director
