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Introduction
Malawi is at an advanced stage of developing a Food and Nutrition Security Policy (FNSP). The implementation of the policy will require a well developed monitoring system. The Technical Secretariat in the Ministry of Agriculture is coordinating the stakeholder input in the development of the impact and output indicators of the FNSP.
This paper covers four areas relating to the role of civil societies in the process of developing the FNSP. The first is a brief background to the FNSP and how it has evolved till the present time, including developing the monitoring system. Secondly, the methodology employed to develop the monitoring indicators. Thirdly, the experience, especially challenges and successes, of developing indicators. It should be noted at the outset that the FNSP's monitoring system is still in the process of being developed.
The development of the FNSP monitoring system is in two phases. In the first phase, impact and output indicators were developed, where a consultant interviewed CISANET members. The second part that is in progress is the development of the baseline that will form the bench mark for monitoring the implementation of the policy. A statistician will be hired in June this year.
However, it is important to look at the agriculture sector and the importance of monitoring the different policy issues that come under FNSP.
Background to agriculture development and challenges
Since Malawi gained independence in 1964, agriculture has been the main engine of development as this sector accounts for 36% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and provides 65.3% of the total income of the rural people who constitute 85% of the country's population. This sector also provides 87% of total employment and accounts for 82.5% of foreign exchange earnings. Therefore, the promotion and diversification of agriculture has contributed to national and household level food and nutrition security.
This has been the case even before attaining independence from the colonial government. Since then, the agriculture system in Malawi has been dualistic, that is, characterized by the smallholder and estate sectors. The former which comprises the largest sector is characterized by: low land holding sizes (with average per capita landholding size being less than 0.5 hectares), the majority of these small farmers are poor, low levels of technology adoption, and low levels of land and labour productivity since it is highly labour intensive as evidenced by the predominance of the hand hoe in farming. On the other hand the estate sector has had advantages over the smallholder in that it utilizes cheap excess labour excess labour from smallholders, has access to more land of better quality and fertility, much of which is under-utilised, has access to capital, and produces higher value crops.
However, because of the negative effects of this differentiation, reforms have been taking place in the agriculture sector. Even though this has been the case the experience has produced both negative as well as positive consequences. Some notable reforms include:
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Market liberalization, with the deregulation of markets by Government, enabling smallholder farmer to cultivate higher value crops like burley tobacco, that is the green gold of the country. However, this deregulation has provided insufficient protection from market shocks, such as price fluctuations.
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Subsidy removal programme, with blanket subsidies on fertilizer were removed under World Bank structural adjustment programmes in the mid 1980s. This led to crop production constraints, particularly of the staple crop maize, due to the low purchasing power of smallholders and ever-increasing fertilizer prices.
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- 151Kb ~ 1 min (13 pages)
