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Malawi can feed itself, suggests US delegation
By
Herbert Piriminta - 06-08-2002 |
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A delegation from Global 2000 Atlanta in the United States of America has said soil management is the most important factor to address the declining food production in the sub-Saharan region, indicating that increased pressure on the land over the years has leached the soil of its fertility.
A representative of the delegation, Ernest Sprague, said at an agriculture workshop held in Lilongwe recently that some years back there was much less pressure on land and farmers practised a slash and burn rotation. He said fallow periods allowed the depleted land to recoup while a new plot of land was being worked.
“This system also had a positive effect on the weed population. Unfortunately the increased pressure on land over the years caused by population growth has eliminated the practices of slash and burn and different ways of maintaining and improving soil fertility must be used,” said Sprague.
He said, when one looks back over the last 25 years, food production per capita has declined tremendously, indicating that if this trend is allowed to continue there will be untold numbers of sub-Saharan African people suffering from famine and malnutrition.
Sprague said Sasakawa Global 2000 had a demonstration programme in Malawi during the last harvest, which showed good yields.
“Many demonstration plots were conducted in four rural development regions
and the highest yield was 6,250 kilogrammes per hectare with the lowest yield being 3,933kg per hectare. This compares with a national average of less than 1,000kg per hectare,” he said.
Sprague said the performance of the demonstration programme clearly shows that the use of good varieties and hybrids, with appropriate fertiliser application and weed control, gives Malawi the potential to produce surplus maize.
He said food insecurity currently affecting the country is not a result of bad weather, which is uncontrollable, but a result of lack of fertilizer and seed.
“As an example of the consequences of these shortages, maize production in Malawi was reported to be 2.4 million metric tonnes in 1999 when these shortages were not as severe, and fell to 1.4 metric tonnes in 2001 [when they were severe],” he noted.
He said every country needs to make fertilizer available for the farmers at a price that will make food production profitable “or we will continue to witness an increase in famine, gross malnutrition and continued severe degradation of the soils”.
To achieve this end, Sprague said, people must influence their governments to establish policies that can facilitate control of soil fertility and make necessary agronomic inputs available.
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