Print This PageGrowing Hope in Africa
Growing Self-Sufficiency Through Choice
In 2005, Mary Katsonya watched her field wither day by day, week by week, until she harvested only a few bags of maize from her small farm — not even enough to feed her family. They, and almost 5 million other Malawians, depended on emergency food aid that year to make it through the “hunger season.” 3 The cost to provide enough maize to sustain the Katsonya family for that year was about $400.
The drought had another consequence. Katsonya normally saves some grain from her harvest each year to plant the following year or to trade for new seed. Everything she grew in 2005, however, was used to meet her family’s needs, leaving her with no seed for the coming season.
Fortunately, in 2006 the government and other donors stepped forward to provide Malawi’s farmers with some tools — fertilizer and high-quality maize seed — to help them get back on their feet. Katsonya received 50 kilograms of hybrid seed and fertilizer, worth about $70. She tended her crop just as carefully as she had every other year. But she also received some extra help from local organizations that distributed the seed. That year the rains did come, and the corn grew taller and stronger as the months went on.
At
the end of the season, Katsonya was delighted to count the 200 bags of grain
as they were harvested. She saved 50 bags to feed her family through the year,
and sold the rest to buy other things her family needed.
For the 2007 season, Katsonya had a choice to make: She could go back to saved seed, or purchase open pollinated varieties of seed, or seek hybrid seed again. She saw that her next-door neighbor, who in 2006 had chosen to plant seed saved from the previous year’s harvest, had produced only 10 bags from her farm, which was just a little larger than Katsonya’s. In the end, Katsonya chose hybrid seed again. Her 2007 harvest was even bigger — 260 bags.
Stories like Katsonya’s have been repeated across Malawi, where 80 percent of the population is dependent on rain-fed subsistence agriculture.2 Historically, about 90 percent or more of the maize in Malawi has been grown with little fertilizer and planted with seed saved from previous crops or open-pollinated varieties, which usually yield between one and two metric tons per hectare.2
Good rains, greater use of high-yielding quality hybrid seed, and wide availability of fertilizer all contributed to conditions that gave farmers across the country yields that were double the historic average in 2006 and 2007.
With the support of international agencies and the private sector, the government of Malawi began giving farmers vouchers, worth about $3 each, to exchange at local seed distributors for their choice of seeds — open-pollinated varieties or hybrids. Almost a third of these vouchers were exchanged for Monsanto’s hybrid seed for the 2007 season. Local aid organizations that had handled the donated hybrid seed the previous year also began purchasing hybrids to use in their ongoing programs to increase self-sufficiency on small farms.
As
a result, maize production in Malawi in the 2006-2007 season jumped more than
33 percent over the previous year, to 3.44 million metric tons — almost
double the last five-year average maize production, according to the Famine
Early Warning Systems Network.2 Once
a major recipient of international food aid, Malawi is now a supplier. It sends
maize to other countries in need, such as Zimbabwe, Lesotho, and Swaziland.4 The
Malawian government has also given surplus grain to the United Nations World
Food Program for distribution to HIV/AIDs sufferers in Malawi.
A number of factors contributed to the increase in maize production in Malawi. The weather was favorable over the past two years, more people used better inputs (fertilizer and quality hybrid seed), and the area planted to maize grew slightly. Monsanto is privileged to be a part of this evolving success story. In 2005, we donated cash for emergency food aid and seed for planting. We continue to donate seed for programs such as the Millennium Village Project (MVP) in Malawi, and to participate in the government’s voucher program. We believe that the principles of self-sufficiency and choice are essential to improving food security in Malawi and across Africa.
