November 8 - Not enough anything......

Since my last update we have had a major focus on getting the farm inputs to farmers before the rains ... a bit like Y2K, an immoveable deadline!!

FARM INPUTS

First, let me explain the Farm Inputs Credit system. Poor rural families typically have access to an acre of land, where they grow maize corn for their annual food needs. The maize, when processed into flour, is mixed with water and cooked into a dish called 'nsima', the basis for all meals in Malawi. A bit like rice or pasta, it is a bland, polenta-like food, which you serve with a protein or veg-based food, if you have access to those extras.

Maize is planted right now, just before the rains come around mid November. The rainy season lasts until March-April, when the maize is harvested. Within the THP Epicenter, the Farm Input system ‘loans’ a farmer a package of high quality maize seed, and two types of fertilizer, enough for an acre. The farmer also learns about modern farming techniques, and will typically yield around 45 bags of maize, 3-4 times what he was getting before. The ‘repayment’ is a pre-agreed number bags of maize to the Epicenter Community Food Bank. The Food Bank can then sell maize to people within the community who don’t have enough food, and at the end of the season, excess maize in the Food Bank is sold on the free market, and the proceeds used to fund the next cycle of farm inputs. Any excess which the farmer has after repaying his loan is his to keep, a welcome source of income which often goes towards school fees and the like. (nb: I have used the term ‘his’, however there with high mortality rates in Malawi there are many female headed households in rural Malawi.)

There is a separate budget for Farm Inputs for HIV Positive farmers, this is but one of many incentives for people in the community to be tested and declare their status.

 Several weeks ago we were in the middle of selling and transporting all the Epicenter Food Bank excess maize to the market, to raise funds to purchase the new farm inputs. After sourcing the inputs and lining up transport, we were struck by diesel shortages to get the inputs to the farmers before the ‘planting rains’ arrived, which was just this weekend. The Program Officer was run off his feet for a couple of weeks, supervising the whole exercise, as naturally in Malawi you need to monitor everything visually, with a high rate of pilferage of such valuable commodities!



Signing  up for the first Farm Input program at Majete



On Thursday I went to Majete Epicenter (our newest), for their first disbursement of Farm Inputs. Each farmer (who had earlier registered and received the training), arrived at a local school (the Epicenter building hasn’t been built yet) to receive their 3 packages, 2 x 50kg packs of fertilizer, and a small pack of seed) .. and each one then either carried them off on their heads, or on the back of bicycles. Not surprisingly, when we were driving out, we saw more than a few upturned bicycles!!



Young woman with baby on her back being loaded up

with her 50kg bag of fertilizer

 
 


Now to get it home!!

 






 



Happy with his lot!!



OTHER SHORTAGES AND PRICE HIKES

Aside from the desperate state of diesel supply, Malawi seems to be heading in a general down hill spiral as supply of other essentials falter. This is all due to a lack of foreign currency, in a country where just about any manufacturing process requires at least some imported items. A common one is soft drinks. Coke and Fanta here are bottled locally by Carlsberg, but with a shortage of gas which is required for the ‘soda’, we haven’t seen Tonic or Soda water for sale here for about 2 months. Now only Coke and Fanta are bottled, but in alternating weeks, so we have one week where you can only see Coke for sale, the next week it is only Fanta. I expect this will also be a temporary situation, until you cant get either, only beer.

Electricity is provided to all Malawians by a single hydro plant on the Shire River, which was built in 1963. To ration the completely inadequate supply, power goes off every 3-4 nights per week, previously for 2 hours, but in recent weeks this has jumped to 3 hrs, from about 6-9pm. In addition, the morning after your evening of outage, another blackout lasts from about 5:30-9am. Just as well I am no longer using a hair dryer!!! Generators would be a great alternative; however the fuel shortages ensure few people have enough fuel to feed their generators after filling their cars.

As shortages increase, and the Kwatcha is devalued, naturally the next thing you see if increasing prices. You even expect them.... however I think everyone was taken by surprise this morning when we woke to the news that Petrol and Diesel had increased 50% OVERNIGHT!!! Imagine the knock-on effects to the cost of everything else .. Especially the impact on the rural poor!!

What does tomorrow hold for this country??