A Harvest Of Good Sense

Due to a calamitous corn harvest in 2005, many of the 13 million people in the African country of Malawi were hungry and in need of emergency food assistance. But then, as The New York Times recently reported, the country's leaders took a bold and courageous pass at common sense. They reinstated and increased government subsidies for fertilizer for the country's farmers.

Voila. Fertilizer, abetted by good rains, led to bumper crops. This year, Malawi grew more food than it needed and became a food-exporting country. Instead of being a basket case, it is filling its neighbors' baskets. The Times reported that Malawi is selling more corn to the U.N. World Food Program than any other country in southern Africa and is exporting hundreds of thousands of tons of corn to Zimbabwe.

If it were this simple, why didn't it happen before? The answer has to do with the utopian naivete of the World Bank and Western nations, which have provided aid to Malawi. They urged the country to follow free-market policies and cut back or eliminate fertilizer subsidies (even though the United States and Europe extensively subsidize their own farmers).

But after the disastrous 2005 harvest, Malawi president Bingu wa Mutharika took a hard look at his situation. Malawi's soil is seriously depleted and many, if not most, of its farmers are too poor to afford fertilizer at market prices. Mr. Mutharika reasoned, correctly, that government subsidies for fertilizer and good seed would translate to successful farming.

That he had to buck the wishes of donor countries and organizations says more about them than Malawi. There is a long and sad history of monumental waste, well-intended stupidity, patronizing attitudes and support of corrupt governments in the foreign-aid arena, well-documented in the recent book "The White Man's Burden" by ex-World Bank economist William Easterly.

The World Bank's own internal watchdog concluded in October that not only had the removal of subsidies led to exorbitant fertilizer prices in African countries, but the bank itself had often failed to recognize that improving Africa's declining soil quality was essential to lifting food production.

The Malawi story underscores the need for new thinking in foreign-aid policy. We must lose the old imperialist attitude that the West knows best and listen to the indigenous people. Mr. Easterly, who now teaches at New York University, suggests that gradual and incremental assistance — such things as inoculations, clean water, indoor-smoke removal, insecticide-treated bed nets — are often more effective than big-bang government loans. He also thinks aid agents should be held accountable for their actions.

At the very least, the success of the Malawi farmers should teach us to act with humility.