More than 200,000 Malawian farmers who depend on government
subsidies to grow enough food to feed their families will have to go it alone
when the agricultural subsidy programme is pruned.
President Bingu wa Mutharika introduced the Farm Input
Subsidy Programme (FISP) in 2005 to improve national food security and lift the
productivity of smallholder farmers after several years of drought brought poor
harvests.
The scheme is widely seen as successful in achieving both
goals, but expensive. During the 2010/11 farming season 1.6 million farmers
received vouchers to buy heavily subsidised fertilizer and maize seed, costing
the government and donors 23 billion kwacha (US$152.3 million).
Now, in the midst of a crippling economic crisis, the
Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security has announced that only 1.4 million
farmers are eligible to receive vouchers for the 2011/12 season, and only
140,000 metric tons of fertilizer have been purchased for distribution compared
to the 170,000 tonnes it bought last year.
Florance Gusito, who lives in Nyenga village in Malawi's
Southern Region, benefited from the subsidy programme in previous years and is
among the more than 80 percent of the population who earn a living from
subsistence farming.
"I didn't receive a subsidy because there was a
shortage this year," she said. "I will buy what I can afford from the
market, but buying fertilizer will be a problem because money is a problem.
There is a possibility that the crop will fail."
The Village Development Committee in Ngomanjira, also in the
Southern Region, had the difficult task of determining which 66 households
should be registered to receive government vouchers - in 2010 there were enough
vouchers for 199 households.
"The government gave us a small number of people who
can benefit from the programme," said the committee treasurer, Harry
Macheza. "And how can we assist those who are not registered? We don't
know.”
Government officials have suggested that reducing the
programme reflects its success in lifting the beneficiaries out of poverty, but
Tamani Nkhono-Mvula, national coordinator of the Civil Society Agriculture
Network (CISANET), is not convinced. "Most of the farmers who were
benefiting from the programme, I don't think they've reached a point where they
can afford to buy fertilizer themselves," he said.
The country's slowing economy means farmers are facing
higher taxes, fuel shortages and falling prices for tobacco, their main cash
crop.
Lizzie Shumba, who coordinates a project to improve food
security and soil fertility in northern Malawi
farming communities, said farmers who did not get government subsidies relied
on the proceeds from their tobacco crop to buy fertilizer for growing maize,
the main food crop. "The [tobacco] prices were so bad they can't afford to
buy fertilizer," she said. "People had enough maize this year, but
since they didn't get good prices for their tobacco, they had to sell their
maize [to generate cash]. So I'm foreseeing that this season we might have some
hunger, and if they don't get fertilizer it will be even worse next
season."
Tobacco exports generate around 60 percent of Malawi's
foreign currency reserves, but declining sales have contributed to a critical
shortage of foreign exchange.
Charles Chanthunya, an economics professor at Blantyre
International University,
said the shortage negatively impacted the entire economy, including the FISP,
which relies on foreign exchange to import fertilizer.
"There are people who won't receive a subsidy this year
because the country will not be bringing in enough fertilizer," he said.
Malawi's dependence on maize as the staple food has
implications for the food security of the entire population.
Concerns over poor governance and economic mismanagement by
Mutharika's administration have seen international donors - including the
US-based Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), the European Union and the
World Bank - either freeze or terminate assistance to Malawi,
which relies on foreign aid for up to 40 percent of its annual budget.
The largest donor, the UK's
Department for International Development (DfID), suspended general budgetary
support to Malawi
in July 2011 - following a diplomatic spat between Britain,
the former colonial power and Malawi's
government - but agreed to assist the FISP by providing subsidised seeds to
350,000 farmers. According to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO),
other international donors have also pledged their financial and technical
support to the FISP for 2011/12.
However, most of the FISP funding will still need to come
from the government and according to Nkhono-Mvula of CISANET, this will mean
reduced spending on other areas such as infrastructure and development.
Farmers are now in the process of preparing their fields and
planting will start as soon as the Department of Climate Change and
Meteorological Services gives the green light.
Erica Maganga, Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of
Agriculture and Food Security, on 2 October told The Nation, a national daily
newspaper, that fertilizer was already being distributed to markets countrywide
but Nkhono-Mvula said the government was still in the process of procuring
fertilizer and distribution had yet to begin. "It's getting late,
especially for the southern region," he noted.
Nkhono-Mvula also wondered how the fertilizer would be
distributed in view of the fuel shortage. "As of now we don't have enough
diesel in the country. I'm not sure how this is going to be solved, but the
government is still saying everything will be done in time.
IRIN
