Alternative crops solution for MW economy
Vincent Moyo is a Country Representative for Tear Fund Malawi. Tear Fund, an acronym for The Evangelical Association Relief Fund supports local non-governmental organisations in Malawi, particularly in sustainable development.
During one of the morning devotions, Moyo encouraged members of staff to market Malawi’s agricultural products whenever visitors from overseas come in the country.
Morning devotions are sessions of reflection and discernment for God’s interventions in offices, churches and Malawi as a whole.
The prayers for redemption and resilience are not uncommon. Presidents and leadership in various organizations and the rural farmers who feed the nation are not forgotten as they are key and agriculture contributes about 30 to 40 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
“I make sure all visitors from other countries get five kilograms of Mzuzu Coffee and ten bottles of Nali Piripiri source [Abale Samalani] to enjoy when they go back home. The purpose is to market other crops to complement tobacco,” Moyo explains.
Tobacco is the main cash crops for Malawi’s earnings from exports apart from tea, coffee, sugar and macadamia.
The export values for tobacco range between $215 million and $687 million. Though the drop of revenue from $687 million in 2010 to $388 million in 2014 and $337 this year nothing seems to deter the path the country has taken, to be heavily dependent on tobacco.
In November, the newly appointed chief executive officer (CEO) of Tobacco Control Commission (TCC), Albert Changaya was quoted to have alluded to the reduction by 18 percent of total estimated value earmarked by all buyers [and processors alike] in 2015/2016 growing season compared to last year.
Relatedly, two percent of farmers around Matutu communities in Mchinji district failed to sell at least 30 percent of their annual tobacco production. Incidentally, “tobacco is not food”, Moses Buti, one of the disappointed farmers, complained.
Information asymmetry trap farmers in romance with tobacco. Agricultural extension workers are few to inform the farmers about some other lucrative crops in addition to tobacco.
The advent of demand-driven extension approaches in the 2000 degenerated into chaotic and dysfunctional extension services. Agricultural development is subjected to what in public administration and management call ‘butterfly effects’.
The term is defined in this context as ‘after effects’ of demand-driven extension likened to butterfly which when flipping its wings causes ripples.
Ripples in tobacco industry are ceaseless. The World Health Organisation (WHO), formed on April 7 1947, mandated by its member states through article 19 (2) to work for attainment by all peoples of the highest possible levels of health, initiated Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in 2009.
It claims that prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as cardiovascular diseases, cancers, diabetes and chronic lung diseases are due to tobacco use, unhealthy diet, insufficient physical activity and the harmful use of alcohol.
According to WHO, the diseases caused 36 million out of 57 million deaths globally by 2008.
The FCTC seems entangled in stabbing its own back. Tobacco use is not the only behavioural risk factor. Same others are pervasive not only for causing deaths, but also economic transition, rapid growth and 21st century lifestyle.
Manufacturers and traders of tobacco take advantage. The fact is that tobacco is lucrative business. Multinationals in free-market economies such as producers, manufacturers and cigarette companies are there to maximize profits.
Can they sit idle to see their businesses smashed? After all, tobacco industry is not a jurisdiction of WHO. It is this interjurisdictional differences between multinational corporations and the WHO that developing countries like Malawi can bank on for years to come.
Conversely, casting the net wide open for other cash and food crops to be depended upon is another better option. Eggs cannot be put in one basket.
Malawian farmers in tobacco industry face challenges. Middlemen treacherously ‘blindfold’ them by buying ‘golden leaf’ at very low prices. It is the tactics learnt from doctrines of neo-liberalism: Sitailo ndi mwini [self-interestedness].
This act does not mind the toil our farmers go through. Bought at average price of $1.65 (about K700) per kilogramme (kg), such farmers have to deduct costs of hessian sacks, and strings, in addition to operational costs. The poor farmer at the end of year gets a raw deal.
Soya beans, groundnuts and pigeon peas have lower costs for materials and operation. But the returns are attractive.
This year alone, a kilo of shelled groundnuts, at least by December, is priced at K800 (£1.20) in Blantyre. Comparatively, groundnuts outshine tobacco.
If patriots like Moyo can continue marketing complementary crops. Certainly, Malawi’s economy will flourish. n
* Vasulu is the projects coordinator at Climate Justice and Sustainable Livelihood, Eastern and Southern Africa.
