Severe deforestation in Malawi has over the years degraded the land and most smallholder farmers can only cultivate the same piece of land, so fertiliser had become necessary to replace lost nutrients. But now that is not so easy. The prices of fertilisers and herbicides have gone up. Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 50kg of fertiliser was 22,042 Malawian kwacha (about £19). In April it rose to 49,000 kwacha; this month, the price reached 65,000 kwacha. A dish of tomato was at 13,000 kwacha; now it is at 28,000. People don’t have money, so it is a difficult situation for everyone.
Malawi is reeling. The economy is predominantly agriculture-based, with farming accounting for 30% of GDP and generating more than 80% of export earnings. Malawi devalued the kwacha by 25% in May to stabilise dwindling foreign currency reserves and return to a market-determined exchange rate regime. However, inflation soon soared; cooking oil doubled in cost, and petrol and diesel prices have been increased at least twice this year.
Almost-forgotten traditional methods have returned to popularity. Farmers have started looking for manure, buying a few chickens and goats to produce it. Some farmers are using neem leaves and the tuberous shrub locally known as mphanjovu (Neorautanenia mitis), as natural pesticides.
Meanwhile, there are more orders for “bionitrate fertiliser” – made from urine from local people. Not only is it claimed the product more affordable but it is more beneficial than chemical fertilisers. Bionitrate is good for vegetative and fruiting crops such as maize, rice, wheat, vegetables, lawns, flowers, and sorghum or millet, and when applied, it is also nourishment for maggot farming. Demand for this fertiliser has grown by 75%.
Frighton Njolomole, the president of the Farmers’ Union of Malawi, says the prices make the cost-of-living issues during Covid seem “mild”. With planting season approaching, he fears things will worsen.
“The farmers with large-scale farms to the medium scale, they always do mechanisation, like hiring tractors to work, so those are equally affected because fuel has gone just too high,” he says. “Even when a farmer foots all these costs, the prices are not going to be the same, and if they raise the price unnecessarily, who is going to buy? I don’t think most of our farmers will survive. If things do not change, survival is going to be a big thing.”
He is in favour of a return to traditional practices to plug the gap.
“We need to experiment with indigenous methods as well,” Njolomole says. “If they work and help the farmers to maximise their outputs while reducing the cost of production, let farmers use them, as long as they work.”
No comments:
Post a Comment