Focus shifts to irrigation agriculture

Various agricultural stakeholders have urged Malawi, blessed with abundant water resources, to develop irrigation schemes to ensure food security in the future. "For the past 10 years government has done nothing in terms of irrigation. Yes, it carried out feasibility studies, but what has been done so far?" Benito Elias, executive director of the Farmers' Union of Malawi, commented to IRIN. He said investment in irrigation would enable farmers to harvest twice a year if they grew crops on a commercial basis. Despite the fact that almost all of Malawi's 27 districts have access to a body of water - a river or one of the country's five lakes - only two percent of Malawi's arable land is under irrigation. Agricultural production in Malawi is mostly dependant on seasonal rainfall, which has failed for the fourth consecutive year. The UN's World Food Programme has warned that up to five million people could be in need of food aid in the coming months. "The ineffectiveness of rainfall results in crop water deficit in both the summer and winter season, and that results in a low yield. In such a case, if we say the food crisis in Malawi has mainly been due to drought, that is true," said Isaac Fandika, a government irrigation expert. "Irrigation can close the water deficit gap causing the food crisis." As part of its efforts to address the crisis, the government had begun handing out low-tech treadle pumps, which rely on human energy, to members of parliament for distribution in their constituencies. The government is also developing other irrigation schemes. "We intend to achieve food self-sufficiency within the next two years; we are going to do whatever it takes - irrigation schemes, distribution of seeds - everything it takes to ensure that," R P Mwadiwa, permanent secretary in the ministry of agriculture and irrigation, told IRIN recently. However, farmers have said the mere distribution of pumps would not resolve the problem. "We can buy treadle pumps, but if we do not train the farmers on how to use them, or artisans to repair the damaged pumps, then all the efforts are being wasted," commented Elias. More than 70 percent of Malawi's 12 million people depend on farming for a living. "In some areas government need not give people treadle pumps because they are not needed - in the higher grounds of Chikwawa and Nsanje [districts in southern Malawi] not all people are using the treadle pumps, and some farmers have sold them to their neighbouring friends in Mozambique," said Elias. Irrigation expert Kenneth Wiyo said the development of irrigation schemes should be "market-driven rather than technology-driven. People need to know what kind of crops they need in a particular area before engaging in irrigation". "Apart from treadle pumps, farmers could use river diversions, motorised pumps or dams ... for irrigation," he said, adding that farmers needed to own the technology for it to succeed. Wiyo said in areas where there were no perennial rivers, water harvesting could be the solution - communities could harvest water and store it in dams or ponds, and "use it to irrigate during the dry season". Fandika noted that water harvesting raised the water table in river basin zones, which in turn reduced pumping costs. However, experts have pointed out that merely developing irrigation schemes would not provide a quick-fix solution. "I do not think irrigation will address food shortages in Malawi, mainly because of the high cost of inputs, which the majority of smallholder farmers cannot afford," said Stacia Nordon, a sustainable food and nutrition security consultant.