Ordinary Malawians seize the initiative

Ordinary Malawians are not waiting for government to step up its plan to adapt to climate change, says a new report, The Winds of Change: Climate change, poverty and the environment in Malawi.

A report by the UK-based development agency, Oxfam, tells of the headman of a village outside Blantyre, Malawi's second city, who has placed a ban on cutting trees, and a farming couple who have established tree nurseries in their village, are among the many who know that to adapt is to survive.

Fred Kabambe, a small-scale farmer in Thyolo, a town in southern Malawi, has managed to secure early-maturing, high-yielding maize seeds from Churches Action on Relief and Development, which works to improve food security, and plants them in furrows to conserve moisture. A portion of the seed from his harvest will be deposited in a newly built grain bank in town.

He told the authors of the report he used to harvest one bag of maize; last year he got eight bags and earned enough income to put a tin roof on his house, and this year he aims to finish the building work. "Now more people are following these methods. I feel very great!"

''Government can ...prioritize certain polices such as rolling out rural electrification, which will reduce Malawians' dependence on charcoal and irrigation for agriculture''
The report, largely based on anecdotal input, said rising temperatures and intense rain over the past 40 years had led to droughts, floods, shorter growing seasons, smaller crop yields, food shortages, hunger and the spread of disease in a country where 29 percent of people were already living in extreme poverty.

The Malawian government has failed to raise any donor money for its plan to adapt to climate change - costing more than US$22 million - from the Least
Developed Countries Fund (LDCF), set up under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to finance projects identified by countries in their National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA).

According to experts, only a handful of NAPA projects have been approved for implementation since the inception of the LDCF in 2001, but Elvis Sukali, one of the report's two authors, told IRIN that a lack of funds should not become an "excuse for inaction".

"Government can start making some budgetary allocations and prioritize certain polices," he suggested, "such as rolling out rural electrification, which will reduce Malawians' dependence on charcoal and irrigation for agriculture."

Impoverished Malawi claims record maize harvest

Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika said Tuesday his impoverished southern African nation, once crippled by famine, produced a record maize harvest this year, more than enough to feed its people.

"In 2009, our country produced 3.7 million tonnes of maize, a 36 percent increase from last year's crop," Mutharika told parliament in his state of the nation address, broadcast live on state radio.

"This means we have registered a surplus of 1.3 metric tonnes," he said, in the first session of parliament following last month's general elections.

He said Malawi needs 2.4 million tonnes annually to feed its population.

He attributed the record harvest to "heavy investment" in subsidised fertilizer and other farm inputs, which in the 2008/9 growing season alone cost 183 million dollars -- the highest figure since the programme was introduced in 2005.

Malawi grew enough to feed its 13 million people for the first time in seven years in 2006, following a series of poor harvests blamed on drought.

Mutharika said the subsidies benefitted two million peasant farmers who grew maize, tobacco, coffee and tea.

"The government will continue with this programme," he said.

The scheme was introduced by Mutharika and was credited with helping him win a sweeping victory in last month's elections, despite tough competition from an opposition alliance.

The government-funded programme is hugely popular in Malawi. It brings down the cost of a 50-kilo bag of fertiliser to 3.80 dollars, lower than the market price of 5.70 dollars.

Last year, Malawi produced a bumper harvest of 3.3 million tonnes of maize, also credited to the subsidies.

Over 400,000 tonnes of the surplus maize from last year's harvest was exported to cash-strapped Zimbabwe, once the region's bread-basket.

Food security is a pressing issue in Malawi, where 60 percent of the people live on less than a dollar a day.

Famine threatened up to five million people in 2005 following drought and the government spent over 100 million dollars to import food from South Africa and the region to avert hunger.

Some 85 percent of farming is done by smallholder farmers who use mainly hoes and manual labour to grow 80 percent of the food produced in Malawi.