Malawi is one of the good news coun­tries in Africa in regards to food pro­duc­tion. Thanks to fer­til­izer, seeds and irri­ga­tion Malawi is now a food exporter.

The gov­ern­ment of Malawi con­ducts a sub­sidy pro­gram for farm­ers. The gov­ern­ment helps with the costs of inputs to help increase farm­ers yields. The sub­sidy pro­gram takes up 15 per­cent of Malawi’s national bud­get. Mean­while, the per­cent­age of those in poverty in the coun­try has fallen to 40 per­cent from 52 percent.

From this Bloomberg story, writ­ers Frank Jomo and Brian Latham give us more of the good news.

Once the vic­tim of inter­mit­tent famines that left 40 per­cent of the pop­u­la­tion depen­dent on inter­na­tional aid just four years ago, Malawi has become a food exporter. Farm­ers credit a gov­ern­ment pro­gram of sub­si­diz­ing fer­til­iz­ers for the turn­around.

“The world faces mas­sive food short­ages, but we have a les­son we can offer to the world,” Pres­i­dent Bingu wa Mutharika, who was re-elected in May, told reporters this week. “Our sub­sidy pro­gram is a suc­cess and we want other coun­tries to learn from us.”

Other African coun­tries may now get the funds to fol­low Malawi: The Group of Eight nations on July 10 approved $20 bil­lion in aid over three years to help poor farm­ers world­wide, mostly through cheaper access to fer­til­iz­ers and seed.

Neigh­bor­ing Tan­za­nia began a fertilizer-subsidy pro­gram last Decem­ber. Kenya had already announced plans for a sub­sidy sys­tem to turn it into a net food exporter by 2012, while Uganda increased agri­cul­tural spend­ing by 47 per­cent in the bud­get announced on June 11.

“Before the sub­si­dies came in dur­ing 2005, our crops were poor because we couldn’t afford fer­til­izer,” said Luck­more Banda, look­ing out over 5-foot-high corn stalks sprout­ing from every square inch of avail­able land at his home­stead out­side Malawi’s com­mer­cial cap­i­tal, Blan­tyre. “Now, things are on the up and up. Our pro­duc­tion is ris­ing and our income is rising.”

Banda, 62, says the sub­si­dies helped lift his income to $5 a day from less than $1 four years ago. About 7.2 mil­lion small– scale farm­ers in a coun­try of 14.3 mil­lion have received the sub­si­dies over four years, Trea­sury Sec­re­tary Rand­son Mwadiwa said in an interview.

Malawi expects to pro­duce an esti­mated 3.7 mil­lion met­ric tons of corn this year, up 36 per­cent from 2008 and exceed­ing the 2.4 mil­lion tons needed for self-sufficiency, Finance Min­is­ter Ken Kan­dodo Banda said in a July 3 interview.

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