1.
Risk of Two Poor Harvests Back to Back
From the farmers’ perspective, the last two years have been
challenging to say the least. From
December 2014 through March 2015, Malawi had several torrential rains, especially
in the southern region, causing extensive flooding in the lowlands, reducing
maize yields to less than 60% of their historical averages. Thus far, this year the problem has been
the lack of rain.[1] Rains came earlier this year, starting in
December 2015, but they have not been consistent, with only a few soaking rains
through the end of January 2016.
Usually subsistence farmers plant maize after the second soaking rain of
the season.[2]
Rains have been better in the north,
but there is great concern in the south that if more rain does not fall soon,
this year’s maize crop will be as bad, if not worse, than the 2015 crop. Around Blantyre the effects of the semi
drought are not yet fully apparent—planted fields in the city limits, as well
as those in the countryside, are green, and now waist to shoulder nigh, and the
maize appears to be thriving. Maize is
planted in every spare patch, rocky or not, hilly or flat, around Blantyre, so
much so that we are invariably taken aback when finding a vacant parcel not
seeded with maize. This year many remind us that the 2016 maize
crop will be stunted unless there is more rain soon. Most small farms have little crop
diversification—in Malawi, maize is unquestionably the crop of choice—so much
so that Malawi’s national identity—and certainly its diet--is inextricably
linked with maize--and the economy rises or falls upon the success of the maize
harvest. Other common crops include
tobacco, sugar cane, Irish and sweet potatoes, cassava, beans, and pigeon
peas. These crops are frequently
planted, but almost as after-thoughts, only for the purpose of supplementing
the predominant maize crop. Farmers are
often urged to diversify their crops to reduce dependence upon maize yields,
but those pleas usually fall on deaf ears, the Malawians loathe to move away
from their traditional habit of planting maize.[3]
Were Malawi to suffer two bad maize crops back to back—the
first due to too much rain, the second to too little, the consequences for the
economy in general and for the health and well-being of the average Malawian
would be disastrous, since so many families rely upon the maize crop to produce
nsima, the staple item in most Malawians’ diet. Nsima is a polenta-type product (basically
tasteless), eaten with some protein element (typically in the form of beans,
chicken, fish, or beef), supplemented by a vegetable mix consisting of pumpkin
leaves, lettuce, cabbage, and other greens.
The less maize, the less commodities or cash in the economic
system. Whenever there is a poor maize harvest, the
dire effects upon the poor become progressively apparent as one gets further
and further away from the most recent harvest, as subsistence farmers consume the
prior year’s harvest, leaving them little to eat apart from what they can
readily pick off local fruit bearing trees, including mango, avocado, passion
fruit and papaya trees.
If it is a good year, subsistence farmers will bag enough 50
kg bags of maize grain to last their families until the next harvest—and
perhaps even a few extra bags available for sale as a cash crop to cover costs
of other food stuffs and essentials.
Bad years are measured, instead, by how quickly the family exhausts the
available maize reserves and how many weeks or months they are forced to go
without privately harvested maize before the next harvest. The average family of four consumes roughly
12 to 16 50 kg bags of maize kernels a year, grinding as necessary the kernels into
maize meal or flour at local maize mills.
Poorer families consume even more maize because they cannot supplement
their diets with chicken, beef, rice and other products, usually more expensive. Some families will eat some form of maize at
virtually every meal of the day—a maize porridge for breakfast and nsima for
lunch and dinner or, if conditions are really tight, during the one meal of the
day. Even one of the popular unrefrigerated
drinks—thoba—is made from maize flour.
[1]
I am writing this toward the end of January 2016, so it is possible that the
rains, though late, will still come this rainy season, and maize yields will be
better than currently expected.
[2]
But this is hardly an exact science. We
have known some members to plant earlier and many to plant later.
[3]
Maize was not introduced as a crop to sub-Saharan Africa until the mid-1800s,
the crop having its historical roots in the new world.
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