It is unsettling to watch the agricultural season approach while many of the people expected to feed this country are still wondering how they will afford to plant.
Across Malawi, farmers are clearing their fields and preparing for the 2026/27 growing season. But for many smallholder farmers, preparation ends there. The fertiliser is too expensive at a time when money is scarce, and the weather outlook is not reassuring.
As a country whose economic fortunes remain closely tied to agriculture, this is deeply concerning. For millions of Malawians, farming is food on the table, school fees, household income and, ultimately, the difference between dignity and desperation.
Yet here we are, approaching another growing season with farmers squeezed by fertiliser costs and facing an uncertain weather outlook. A 50-kilogramme bag of fertiliser costing up to K205 000 is an impossible proposition for many rural households.
The experience of farmers such as Davie Wasi in Chiradzulu shows how bad the situation is. When he could not afford a full bag last season, he resorted to buying fertiliser in small quantities. Joseph Banda in Kasungu faces an equally painful choice: should he sell his modest harvest to buy fertiliser, or keep it to feed his family? Such choices should not have to be made over food, which is a basic life need.
This is why the preparations for the coming season should concern us all.
Government has been promoting alternative inputs, including organic fertilisers such as Mbeya, at a time when conventional inorganic fertilisers have become prohibitively expensive. Exploring affordable ways to improve soil fertility and support farmers is certainly welcome. But introducing an alternative fertiliser is not the same as making it accessible.
This is where some difficult questions must be asked. Do farmers know how to use Mbeya effectively? Have they been adequately sensitised about its application? Do they know where they can buy it? Is sufficient product being manufactured and distributed to meet the likely demand? And, crucially, will farmers in the remotest parts of the country be able to find it without spending money they do not have travelling to a distant town? These are questions we should be asking now.
The majority of the country’s farmers are smallholders living in rural communities and surviving on very little. Many will be using alternative organic fertilisers for the first time. They cannot be expected to experiment with something so critical to their food supply.
Government extension workers, therefore, have an important role to play. They must be out there in the villages, showing farmers what to do. Farmers need practical advice, not simply government announcements that a new product exists. Equally important is to ensure that the input is available where farmers live and trade.
We must also recognise that hunger has consequences far beyond the granary. When food runs out, the first casualties are often the most vulnerable members of the household. Women and girls can bear a disproportionate burden. Female-headed households, in particular, deserve deliberate attention in our food-security interventions.
An empty kitchen can mean a child going to school hungry, or not going to school at all. It can mean families selling productive assets just to survive. It can also expose children to exploitation, push girls into early marriages, and drive desperate people towards crime and other harmful coping mechanisms.
In other words, hunger is not simply the absence of food. It is the erosion of opportunity. And in a poor country such as Malawi, that erosion can keep an entire household trapped in poverty for generations.
This is why I believe food security must be the government’s number one priority. We still have a window to prepare, but it is narrowing.
The government, agricultural suppliers, extension workers and farmers themselves must use these remaining weeks wisely. Inputs must be available and affordable. Farmers must know what is available and how to use it. Extension services must be strengthened and taken closer to the communities that need them.
We cannot command the skies, nor can we prevent every drought or flood. But we can decide whether we meet an uncertain season prepared or unprepared.
From where I stand, Malawi cannot afford to sleepwalk into another food crisis. The first rains are only weeks away. What we do before the rains arrive may determine whether those rains bring hope, or another season of hunger.
