Week 3
Sunday, May 27 – Saturday, June 2, 2012

I spent the third week in the southern tip of Malawi doing qualitative research and collecting data (using the household economic analysis framework [HEA] that I received training for the previous week) for the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee (MVAC) report. I also helped collect data for the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) meeting in Malawi that will use the data to construct an IPC map of Malawi. My team was made up of James Bwirani from Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), Vanessa Kapeleta from Civil Society Agriculture Network of Malawi (CISANET) and Joel Gondwe, an intern from the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development and the son of Malawi’s previous Ambassador to Japan.

Our team went to the two districts of Chikwawa and Nsanje to firstly do in-depth interviews with government officials at the district level. We interviewed the District Agricultural Development Coordinator (DADO), the Disaster Management Officer and the Agricultural Extension Development Coordinator (AEDC). The AEDC would then take us into the different villages within the district. We would introduce ourselves to the community as a whole as well as talk about the purpose of our visit to the village and then conduct 3 different focus groups with the poor, middle and better off wealth groups to figure out the food insecurity situation. I would always assist Vanessa and we would mostly do focus groups with the poor or middle wealth groups. Vanessa would translate for me throughout the focus group. I soon learned that the poor, middle and better off wealth groups consumed different types of foods and also had different sources of income. For example, the poor groups generally consumed maize, pigeon peas and sweet potatoes, while the better off consumed more meat such as goat and beef. James explained to me that the poor and middle groups own similar areas of land (3-4 acres), but the “poor” cultivate only 1 to 1.5 acres due to a shortage of labor and lack of income to buy the necessary agricultural inputs. The “better-off” cultivate the whole area of land which they own (4-5 acres). All 3 wealth groups grow the same crop with the poor growing them in smaller quantities as compared to the other groups. The poor don’t own cattle, while the middle/better-off have 3-4 and 4-8 cattle respectively.

During the focus groups we asked a multitude of questions following the HEA framework about the crop production situation, what hazards had affected the areas, access to irrigation, coping mechanisms, the availability and prices of food from markets, sources of income, methods of food storage and preservation, dietary diversity and nutrition, as well as the effects of the recent devaluation.

We visited a total of 6 villages in the 2 districts of Chikhwawa and Nsanje. In Nsanje, the team visited the following Extension Planning Areas (EPAs): Zunde, Magoti and Makhanga. In Chikhwawa, the team visited the EPAs of Mbewe and Dolo. In Zunde, the team visited the village of Mbangu; in Magoti, the team visited the 2 villages of Kabanu and Kankhomba; in Makhanga, the team visited Mphwiri village; in Mbewe, the team visited Mpasu village; in Dolo, the team visited the village of Jackson. The team concluded that Magoti, Mpatsa and Makhanga EPAs were the worst affected while Zunde and Nyachilenda EPAs were mildly affected.

I observed that all of the villagers sat on the ground and there were chairs set up for us and the chief (also called the village headman). Before starting anything, a member of the village prayed. I soon learned that this would be the norm as every single focus group began with a prayer. Men and women would always sit separately from each other. I noticed a pattern in the focus groups that there was always some tiff between the men and women about grinding costs at the mill. The poor groups would laugh when asked about cattle or tea. They would respond that they were too poor to afford cattle and would simply scorch sugar for tea (it changes the color of the water and tastes a bit different). The kwacha devaluation was also a heated discussion topic and I observed that the previously shy and quiet villagers would suddenly take on an angry tone of voice and would shout over each other about how the devaluation had affected them. 

I observed that there wasn’t much difference physically from the middle and the better off/rich group, but that there was a huge difference between the poor group and the middle/better off groups. The poor groups were extremely shy and seemed embarrassed at times to participate in the focus group. Because of this, Vanessa and I put more effort into making our groups feel comfortable and safe to speak about their perceptions of their food security. Compared to the better off groups, it seemed as if the poor felt that their poverty had robbed them of their dignity and rights. I learned that the poor’s lack of dietary diversity was not because of preference, but was because they lacked the means. It appeared that most people were knowledgeable about nutrition because of the government extension workers that had come into the area to educate them, but I learned that when it comes down to it – people would rather use their money to buy rice and maize to fill their stomachs rather than to be healthy, eat some vegetables and go to bed still feeling hungry.

After doing focus groups for a week and hearing about the unpredictable weather patterns that clearly affected everyone, I wondered why everyone (poor, middle and better off) preferred to plant maize, a rain-fed crop, year after year. I learned from my teammates that millet and sorghum (drought resistant staples) were less yielding per hectare than maize and that Malawians were so used to the taste of maize that nothing else really compared. I then wondered why there wasn’t more investment in irrigation if people preferred to continue producing rain-fed agriculture. I noticed that many farmers didn’t do irrigation (even though experts say that Nsanje has the capability to irrigate 43% of the land) and relied heavily on the rains. I was confused as to why no one was going to the root of the problem and instead continuing activities such as distribution of food aid, hybrid seeds and fertilizers. For example, the late President Bingu wa Mutharika received many international awards for achieving food self-sufficiency at the national level with his farm input subsidy program (FISP), which was created with the intention of increasing smallholder farmers’ access to and use of improved agricultural inputs. However, the FISP didn’t resolve the yearly food security problem at the household level. The FISP didn’t even really consider the farmers’ access to these inputs or take into consideration the issues of distribution, inequality, or corruption; instead it continued to subsidize the same maize seed and fertilizers.

I also learned that the Agricultural Marketing and Development Corporation (ADMARC) of Malawi is a government market agency that is not well regulated. It is supposed to help the people and subsidize the prices of food to make it affordable. However, it is also very political and the politicians in power have been known to use it to win votes and for their benefits. I learned that the farmers felt that the ADMARC scales for weighing the crops were rigged and that they were being cheated.

Some of the findings from the focus groups and interviews that my team conducted were:

Food situation:

• About 11% of farm families were unable to access food from their own production compared to 8% reflecting a worse situation this year at harvest time compared to last year.  The number of households struggling to access food without access to their own produced food will increase drastically as soon as the cotton harvesting is finished soon in July 2012.  Currently cotton incomes are helping poor households to access food from local markets.

Coping mechanisms from households without access to their own produced food are:

• Sales of cash crops like cotton, sugarcane, fruits like oranges, pineapples, lemons and vegetables.
• Sales from forest based products like timber, poles, honey, charcoal and firewood.
• Sales of livestock and livestock products.
• Fish sales from shire and Ruo Rivers.
• Engaging in casual labor like fencing, land preparation (for irrigated crops), quarrying and doing forestry activities.
• Consumption of nyika (water lilies) during times of desperation.
• Going into Mozambique to trade at Fatima market or Wakwatira waluza (a farther market), which in vernacular means, “if you are married, you are doomed and on the losing side, because the market is known to trade maize for sexual favors.” Before, the villagers would simply cross the border to Mozambique in order to access a market. However, this year the bordering areas did just as badly as Malawi and so Malawians had to go all the way to the market in the mountains.

Extension Planning Area - Makhanga

In Makhanga, 100% of people living in the upland and lowland areas were affected by the dry spells. Then the 25% of people living in the lowland areas were affected by floods. The 50% of the 25% living in the lowland areas practice irrigated farming (using treadle pumps) and they were fine even during the floods and the dry spells. UNHCR, WFP, DODMA, Salvation Army among others distributed aid and provided relief to those solely affected by the floods. However, the most affected were the upland areas because they didn’t practice irrigated farming and there was no aid distributed because they were not affected by the floods.

• In the upland areas there was an outbreak of elegant grasshoppers, which consumed almost all of the maize such that the farmers had to replant.
• In the lowland areas, the floods led to an outbreak of livestock diseases such as worm infections for cattle and goats.
• In Makhanga, many farmers take part in cross border trade with Mozambique because Mozambique has had better maize production this year

Having taken part in a mix of different activities from fieldwork to office work, I started thinking a lot about what I want for myself in my future career. I realized that I absolutely love being in the field, interacting with the local people, and trying to understand what the problem is and how to solve it. I find this work challenging, invigorating and incredibly humbling. However, working in the office is what allows one to create, produce tangible/productive work, network, establish a reputation and build a career. 

Overall, this was a marvelous learning experience and I am very grateful to MDP staff for the opportunity J