Malawi small farmers hit by changes in the climate

By: IRIN News

Chronic food insecurity has made small scale farmers consider options such as cooperative farming to benefit from an irrigation scheme in southern Malawi. Photo: IRIN
Small-scale farmers in Malawi are becoming aware that they are bearing the brunt of climate change, which has been adversely affecting productivity, according to a new study by an international aid agency.

"Changing rainfall patterns and higher temperatures have forced farmers to shorten the growing season and switch to more expensive hybrid crops," said a report based on the study, 'Climate change and smallholder farmers in Malawi', by Action Aid International.

The research was conducted in Salima district, in Malawi's central region, and Nsanje in the south, as part of an effort to understand poor people's experiences in adapting to climate change.

"While policy responses to global warming have been mainly driven by debates among scientists, the insights of poor people living on the frontline have been largely neglected," the report commented.

Farmers are increasingly concerned about the impact of climate change on agriculture and food security. "Food availability has been an issue over the years since the disasters began. Much as we have experienced floods in those days, the impact was somehow not as severe. As time went by, there has been a drop in crop production due to frequent flooding and droughts," said a farmer in Salima district.

Malawi's experiences are often traced back to the 1991/92 drought in southern Africa, which affected over six million people. Since then, the report noted, the severity of disasters has escalated.

"We had a very close look at the interactions between weather and food production in Malawi, and we certainly confirm that there is a direct link between the two," said Rene Gommes, Senior Agrometeorologist with the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome.

"Interestingly, Southern Africa was not a region where droughts were frequent until the 1991/92 El Niño. This coincides with the end of the drought in western Africa [in the Sahel], and the mechanism of this synchronism is well known and associated with the movements of the inter-tropical convergence zone (ITCZ) in Africa. There is a negative correlation between rainfall in the Sahel and in Southern Africa," he pointed out.

Changes in rainfall patterns have affected the growing seasons and the type of crops planted, the Action Aid study found: long-season local maize varieties are no longer a preferred option, and maize normally grown in November is now being grown in December. "In the past we used to plant our crops after the first rains, but since we started experiencing frequent droughts and floods we are planting our crops much earlier," one farmer explained.

"This is to allow the crops to meet the first rains, with the hope that they will mature before the end of the rainy season, and to prevent the crops from being washed away by the floods. Instead of planting a local variety of maize, we have opted for hybrid maize that takes a shorter period to mature."

There has also been a noticeable increase in diseases, such as malaria, cholera and dysentery, associated with changes in rainfall patterns, creating health challenges that are particularly affecting women farmers. "We now travel longer distances to fetch water, and spend most of the time in health centres instead of working in our fields," the report quoted a female farmer as saying.

Deforestation

Poor land use and deforestation are also serious concerns among people in Salima and Nsanje. Farmers are aware that these activities result in more floods and droughts, but are not empowered to intervene. Many pointed fingers at the role of tobacco estates in felling trees in their neighbourhood.

Chipiza Kalemba, 84, suggested that the traditional authorities should regulate tree felling. "The laws should include enforcement of planting trees by estate owners as well as communities. Communities should also stop the practice of carelessly cutting down reeds that are growing along riverbanks. There were efforts by the local forestry assistant, but people showed no interest to his messages."

Existing forestry laws require tobacco estates to have a woodlot to be used for reforestation, but this was not being enforced. "Monitoring and evaluation of tobacco estates is a challenge for district staff because of lack of financial resources," a forestry official in Salima told the Action Aid researchers.

The increasing food insecurity caused by climate change has also limited the number of casual jobs available on commercial farms. In the past, nearby small-scale sugar and tea plantations were sources of employment for many people in Nsanje. However, farmers say that flood-induced migration means that there are now many more people seeking work on the plantations than there are jobs available.

Government plans

Malawi has developed its National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPA) in terms of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the international treaty on ways of reducing global warming and cope with altered weather patterns.

The Malawians are considering enhancing food security by developing community-based storage systems for seed and food, and enhancing the resilience of food production systems to erratic rainfall by promoting the sustainable production of maize and vegetables in wetlands and catchment areas.

However, Action Aid said the implementation of NAPA faced capacity constraints at district level, and a lack of coordination among sectors. "In addressing adaptation challenges, it is imperative that a multisectoral approach is taken, beginning at the community level with the smallholder farmers who are directly affected by climate change. These farmers need skills, knowledge and access to credit for the addressing short- and long-term needs of diversifying from maize into other crops."

Aid agencies and the Malawian government have been considering providing drought insurance to smallholder farmers. The Commodity Risk Management Group (CRMG) of the World Bank developed an objective indicator that could be used as a proxy measure of the exposure of Malawi's maize production to drought, but it was poorly linked to crop yields, according to the FAO, which was now working on the idea.