🌾 Rain-fed maize
Most farmers rely on the rainy season, from about November to April, and on one crop, maize. If the rains are late or fail, there is no second chance. Most farms are tiny: the average is about 0.7 hectares.
Challenges of Food Supply » Food Example: Malawi
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
Cambridge spec: 10.3.6
- Where Malawi is and what affects its food supply
- The causes and problems of food insecurity in Malawi
- The strategies and techniques used to increase food supply
- How to evaluate them, so you can write a 6-mark answer
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Unlock This CourseMalawi: the example
Malawi is a low-income country in south-east Africa. It is landlocked, which means it has no coast, and it shares borders with Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique. About 21 million people live there. The capital is Lilongwe, and the long, narrow Lake Malawi runs down the east side of the country. About eight in ten people live by farming, and the main food is maize, which is made into a thick porridge called nsima.
- 2005: after a bad harvest, the government starts the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP).
- 2015 to 2016: floods and then an El Niño drought ruin harvests. The drought is declared a national disaster in April 2016.
- 2020: FISP is replaced by the Affordable Inputs Programme.
- 2023: Cyclone Freddy hits in March.
- 2024: another El Niño drought. A state of disaster is declared in 23 of the 28 districts in March.
Key terms:
- Smallholder: a farmer with a very small farm, often growing food mainly for the family.
- El Niño: a warming of the Pacific Ocean every few years that changes weather worldwide. In southern Africa it brings drought.
- Lean season: the months before the harvest when last year's food has run out and prices are high.
- Conservation agriculture: farming that protects the soil by leaving crop remains as a cover, disturbing the soil as little as possible and growing a mix of crops.
Factors affecting food supply
☀️ Drought and El Niño
After the 2015 to 2016 El Niño, about 6.5 million people, around 39% of the population, were expected by mid-2016 to be unable to meet their food needs the next year. In 2024 the government again declared a disaster as El Niño dried out crops, with about 2 million farming households affected.
🌊 Floods and Cyclone Freddy
Floods in the south damaged crops in January 2015. In March 2023 Cyclone Freddy brought days of rain. More than 1,000 people died or went missing, more than 650,000 were displaced and about 2.2 million people were affected. Maize fields were flattened just before harvest.
🏔 Poor soils
Farms are small, so the same soil is used year after year and its nutrients run out. Steep slopes lose topsoil in heavy rain. Many farmers cannot afford fertiliser to replace what is lost.
Causes of food insecurity
- Poverty: most households have very low incomes, so they cannot buy fertiliser, improved seed or extra food when the harvest is poor.
- Population growth: the population has roughly doubled in about 25 years. The same land is shared among more people, so farms keep getting smaller.
- Food prices: maize is cheap after harvest but its price climbs in the lean season. After Cyclone Freddy, maize prices in affected areas rose sharply, so poor families could not afford enough.
- Lack of irrigation: only a small part of the farmland can be watered in the dry season, so crops depend on the rain.
Problems caused by food insecurity
| Problem | Malawi example |
|---|---|
| Undernutrition and stunting | About 37% of children under five are stunted (2015 to 2016 survey), which is more than one in three. Their bodies and brains do not develop fully. |
| Reliance on aid | After the 2024 drought, the government asked for more than US$200 million of help. Aid can keep people fed, but it does not fix the causes. |
Strategies and techniques to increase food supply
Malawi uses a mix of strategies (action plans, such as subsidies and irrigation schemes) and techniques (methods on the land, such as mulching).
- Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP): from 2005 the government sold cheap vouchers for fertiliser and maize seed to poor farmers. It has since been replaced by the Affordable Inputs Programme, which aims to target farmers better and includes inputs that improve soil health.
- Irrigation schemes: the Shire Valley Transformation Programme in Chikwawa and Nsanje districts will bring water from the Shire River by canal to about 43,000 hectares, so farmers can grow crops twice a year. It is a 14-year programme running from 2018 to 2031.
- Conservation agriculture: farmers use mulch, dig minimum soil and plant maize alongside crops such as pigeon pea or beans. These legumes put nitrogen back into the soil.
- Crop diversification: growing groundnuts, beans, cassava and sweet potato as well as maize, so one failed crop does not mean hunger.
- World Food Programme (WFP): gives emergency food and cash to families after disasters, supports school meals for hundreds of thousands of children, and helps refugees at Dzaleka camp.
Evaluation
Strengths and weaknesses
FISP: it raised maize harvests quickly for many families, but it was costly for the government, inputs often arrived late, and it did not help farmers with no money to buy even the cheap vouchers. Irrigation: it can double harvests and make farmers much less dependent on rain, but it is very expensive, depends on a loan and takes years to build. Conservation agriculture and diversification: cheap, use local skills and last, but yields rise slowly and farmers worry about losing some maize at first. WFP: saves lives in a crisis, but it relies on donors and does not remove the causes. Who benefits: subsidies reach farmers across the country, irrigation mainly helps farmers in Chikwawa and Nsanje, and WFP helps families in a crisis. In this topic, sustainable means food supply keeps rising for future years without damaging the soil or depending on outside money. Overall: no single method is enough. The most sustainable are the cheap farmer-led ones, supported by irrigation and subsidies while the long-term changes take hold.
Worked example
Question: state one factor affecting food supply in Malawi and one way it is managed. Answer: Malawi's farmers rely on rain-fed maize, so drought such as the El Niño of 2015 to 2016 destroys harvests (factor). The Shire Valley Transformation Programme will irrigate about 43,000 hectares so crops can be grown twice a year (management).
Common mistakes
Writing about Africa in general instead of Malawi. Name places (Lilongwe, Chikwawa, Nsanje), a year and a figure. Another mistake is to list the strategies without saying whether they worked, or who gains.
Exam-style question
Study the example of food supply in Malawi.
(a) State two natural factors that have affected food supply in Malawi. [2 marks]
(b) Explain one cause of food insecurity in Malawi. [2 marks]
(c) Describe two problems caused by food insecurity in Malawi. [2 marks]
(d) Evaluate the strategies and techniques used to increase food supply in Malawi. [6 marks]
Model answer
(a) Drought linked to El Niño (1). Flooding or Cyclone Freddy in 2023 (1).
(b) Poverty (1) means farmers cannot afford fertiliser or improved seed, so harvests stay low and families have no savings to buy food when a crop fails (1).
(c) Undernutrition and stunting, with about 37% of under-fives affected (1). A reliance on food aid, such as that from the World Food Programme (1).
(d) Level 3 (5-6 marks): The Farm Input Subsidy Programme gave poor farmers cheap fertiliser and seed, which raised maize yields quickly, but it was costly and inputs often came late. The Shire Valley irrigation scheme will water about 43,000 hectares so that crops are grown twice a year, which reduces reliance on rain. However, it is expensive, takes many years and only reaches farmers in Chikwawa and Nsanje. Conservation agriculture and growing legumes with maize are cheap and use local skills, so they are sustainable, but the results are slow. The World Food Programme saves lives in a crisis but relies on donors. Overall, farmer-led methods are the most sustainable, and they need irrigation and subsidies to support them.
Exam tip
In a 6-mark "Evaluate", name at least three strategies in Malawi, give a strength and a weakness for each, and finish with a clear judgement about which is most sustainable and why.