Opposition Parties in the National Assembly says Malawi can eradicate its perennial food shortages if Agricultural programs and resources are invested to large-scale farmers and not resource poor farmers.
The observation follows US$60 million loan authorization bill on International Fund for Agriculture Development Programme for Rural Irrigation Development which has been passed by Parliament on Tuesday evening where the main beneficiaries in the loan are 19, 500 poor households from number of districts across the country particularly in most areas affected by drought and 12, 300 hectares will be under irrigation through the project.
However, opposition parties feel the program could have been of better impact if it were targeting the energetic and large scale farmers who have capacity to produce enough food for the country.
Speaking in an interview, Malawi Congress Party legislator from Salima Central, Felix Jumbe who is also the Chairperson for the Agriculture Committee in the National Assembly said the project will not bring any impact to the poor farmers because it is more likely that the targeted families will not produce enough harvest.
Jumbe analyzed that at 12,300 hectares, means each family from 19,500 households will have 0.6 hectares. But he observed that most common size of a poor family is seven members and requires not less than 37 bags of maize (50 kgs per each bag). He then computed that at 0.6 hectares, one can only produce 24 bags of maize weighing 50kgs which simply translate to another food shortage to the 19,500 targeted households.
“My belief is that we need to focus on the Household that is very productive.” stressed Jumbe
Jumbe observed that the country’s continued focus on channeling agricultural resources to resource poor families is one method that is causing more poverty in the country.
“Our programmes unfortunately are focusing on resource poor those with little hectares. That does not make any economic meaningful impact to their own lives and let alone to produce for others. So, we need to change that focus.”
He said families with land holding capacity of about of 2 hectares and above are best target group of farmers because they have the capacity to produce more food and more than twice a year.
“These families have a capacity to produce three to four times of what they need.” He added
“By investing agricultural resources to poor farmers we are denying the country from economic growth because this country is now of 17 million people and therefore in our production in our land we need to produce three or four times of production to match up with our population. In that way we are doing favour to our country at large and to the individuals.” Said Jumbe
Jumbe advised that the best way to assist resource poor farmer is through social security programmes like cash transfers and direct food aid, but not continued use of social security programmes as agricultural economic development program because that overshadow the role Agriculture can play as an engine of economic growth.
“Security programmes are best ways of assisting resource poor farmers rather than focusing them using Agriculture facilities that could otherwise be used better by those families that can produce two to four times a year.”
Although Jumbe said was happy that the loan bill is focusing on irrigation in number of areas, but hopes that the only individuals who will benefit from this loan bill are Government officers that will run the project from Capital Hill and not the 19,500 targeted households.
Jumbe’s opinion was earlier shared in the House during the debate of the bill by Peoples Party spokes person on Agricultural issues in the House, Hon. James Munthali, who also said schemes of this nature should not only target the poor and elderly.
“FISP (Farm Input Subsidy Programe) is failing to do well because of this focus on poor. Time has come that we focus on large scale farmers because they are the ones whom poor people will learn better farming methods.” He said
However, Goodall Gondwe, Minister of Finance has opposed the view saying Government wants to ensure that very poor farmers have food to eat.
“The view of Government is that you start with first [small-scale farmers] making sure that people do cultivate and produce food for themselves, then after that you can go on to help those who are producing crops to sale and make themselves richer than they were before.” He said
“The two may not all be different but in terms of emphasis they are different because we emphasize different things. As far as government is concerned, first and foremost, lets enable people to produce food even during the time when there is no rain or if there is floods. They should be able to produce their own food to eat then later on you can look after larger farmers who produce tobacco cotton and so forth for business purpose.
But, am not saying the last one [large-scale farmer] is a bad thing or that we should not have it in the country but those people have means to help for themselves. They are able to buy their own treadle pumps and number of things that irrigation requires, but people who are poor but need to produce crops to eat do not have those things and if you don’t give them then of course it means that they will not be able to eat.” Explained Gondwe
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