By Watipaso Mzungu
The Tropical Cyclone Freddy that hit Malawi in March 2023 not only claimed hundreds of lives, but also left a damage that will take years, if not decades, to repair.
The magnitude of the Freddy devastation is the worst, Malawi, which is one of the poorest countries in the world currently ranking 174 of 189 countries, could have expected considering that dozens of Malawians were already struggling to rebuild from two cyclones – Ana and Idai – that hit the country the previous successive two years.
In January 2022, over 900, 000 people were affected by Cyclone Ana, followed two months later by Cyclone Gombe, which caused yet more damage.
And just as the people were recovering from that experience, Freddy washed away all what the farmers hoped for as their source of survival.
Catherine Mijomboni, a 36-year-old single mother with three children in Chiwala Village in the area of Traditional Authority (T/A) Onga in Chiradzulu, is one of the smallholder farmers who fell victim to the storm.
Mijomboni, who is a member of the National Smallholder Farmers’ Association of Malawi (NASFAM), said had all her maize, sorghum and soya bean fields swept away by the raging waters, leaving her destitute.
From a field where she realized 10 bags of 50 kilogramme each from the 2021-2022 agricultural season, the lady farmer got a meagre 75 kilogrammes in the 2022-2023 season.
“From my one acre of soya bean field, I have realized 10 kilogrammes only. From the sorghum field, I have harvested four bags of unshelled grain, which means is just nothing considering the size of my family,” she lamented.
Halid Kamenya, 44, also suffered a similar tragedy. Kamenya – who lives with his wife and five children in Mgwira Village in T/A Mpama in Chiradzulu – harvested six bags of maize down from 23, which he realized in the previous growing season after applying organic fertilizer called ‘mbeya’.
Thousands of smallholder farmers were also affected by the cyclone in neighbouring district, Phalombe. They lost livestock, crops, property, including lives.
According to NASFAM Association Field Officer for Phalombe, Berrington Kalanya, over 608 hectares of various crops were swept away in the district by the incessant rains, representing about 76 percent of the total farmed land.
Kalanya said all farmer members in 26 Group Action Centres (GACs) which are in his area were affected.
“It was the tragedy of the highest magnitude. Majority of the farming families don’t have anything to show for their labour this year,” he recounted.
His sentiments resonated with what President Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera said that farmers in southern Malawi were the worst affected by the storm.
Chakwera stated that the series of climate disasters that have hit in recent years have deepened the already troubling levels of rural poverty, especially in the Southern Region.
But smallholder farmers under NASFAM are not taking the devastation lying down. They are taking every step, not only to address food insecurity that has accidentally crept into their homesteads, but also to address effects of climate change on their farming business.
Both Mijomboni and Kamenya borrowed money from their NASFAM-facilitated Village Savings and Loans (VSL) groups which they have invested in irrigation and manure making to savage the season and plan for the coming season respectively.
“We are determined to ensure our families do not suffer any food shortage. NASFAM has taught us the skills and modern farming technologies such as climate smart agriculture, and manure making and usage, which we are now employing to achieve our goal,” said Kamenya.
NASFAM Communications Manager, Vincent Nhlema, said in partnership with governments of Norway and Ireland, the Association promotes VSLs among its members as a means of saving for inputs in places where farmers cannot access formal banking institutions and, in the process, reducing the financial inclusion gap in rural areas.
“The stories you have heard from farmers in Chiradzulu show how vital easy access to finance is for rural communities. These farmers are now able to rebuild on their own because they have access to finance. Such citizens will not wait for aid to rebuild their lives. They are resilient because no matter how much loss they experience, they do not fold hands and weep. Instead they rise up and try again to restore what has been lost,” said Nhlema
NASFAM is the largest membership-based smallholder farmers’ association in Malawi working to improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers across the country through farming business.