By Vincent Nhlema

There is a global outcry. Fertilizer prices have gone through the roof. The situation has sent panic not only to farmers but to world leaders as well. There is panic about how national and global agriculture production will be affected. They fear it could lead to food shortage, pushing commodity prices further upward.

The situation is more worrisome in least developed countries like Malawi, where foreign exchange scarcity exacerbates the situation. In the past three years, Malawi has seen rapid price increase for fertilizer. To a greater extent, this has been attributed to disruption of production and supply chain, induced by Covid-19. Today, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine poses a bigger threat to the fertilizer industry. Russia tops fertilizer and natural gas (a major component in production of nitrogen-based fertilizer) exports but with sanctions and disrupted supply logistics due to the invasion of Ukraine, supply shortage is looming.

By Vincent Nhlema

Farmers are now looking back at the 2021/22 farming season, which faced a number of challenges, with delayed rains standing out for most farmers who depend on rainfed production. Almost the whole country experienced late onset of rains, sending panic to farmers whose livelihoods depend on rainfed production.

Steven Gama, a farmer from Kasungu experienced an unusual season due to high temperatures that affected his crops. His maize crop wilted dried at the start of the season to do dry spells, despite late onset of rains.

Dyna Mangapi from Mulanje, is another farmer who is reeling from the negative effects of climate change. She lost chilli crop right at nursery beds due to prolonged dry spell which meant she could not transplant in the absence of rains. By the time the rains came, the seedlings were beyond the transplanting stage.

These are few of the many examples of how delayed onset of rains affected farmers in the 2012/22 farming season.

The case was however, different for those with alternative source of water. Their production calendar went to plan despite the late onset of rains.

By Vincent Nhlema

In recent years, climate change has become a global issue. At global level, world leaders have agreed to take necessary steps to reduce greenhouse gases which has become a major issue in dealing with factors that greatly contribute to global temperature increase. During the recent conference of partners (CoP26), climate campaigners pushed world leaders to implement policies that will limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

While climate change is a global issue, it becomes personal for people living in communities that depend on forests and agriculture, more so in least developed countries like Malawi. They feel the impact more because it has direct effects on their day-to-day life.

With the majority of people in Malawi depending on forests for energy, housing, and other agricultural activities (especially tobacco), preserving forests has become a farfetched dream. It takes one to appreciate the effects of deforestation on human life for them to pay necessary attention to forests.

We are living in a digital age, where information travels at the speed of light. In recent years, most sectors have enjoyed a fair share of technology adoption, allowing them to easily create and share content with players and end-users for improved productivity. Somehow, the agriculture sector lagged behind, more especially in least developed countries, including Malawi. The situation is however, slowly improving.

The National Smallholder Farmers Association of Malawi (NASFAM) is one of the farmer organisations that has adopted use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to reach out to farmers with relevant and timely information that aims to improve their farming business.