For the first time in history, one billion people are now hungry. World leaders recognised the urgent need for action by pledging US$20 billion for aid to agriculture at July’s G8. But pledging money is only the beginning. An ActionAid project in Malawi shows it’s how it is spent that counts.

Farmer Evelyn Mwafulriwa is busy adding bokash (fermented food scraps) to manure from her pigs, chickens and goats, mixing it all together with soil and water. When she’s finished, she covers it with leaves and lets it mature for 21 days. She then tests it with a stick and if gases come out, gives it more time. “If that happens you need to spread the manure out to get more air,” she explains. When the compost is ready it can be used to help grow a bumper crop.

Evelyn farms three hectares in Zatepata village, Malawi, growing a mix of paprika, groundnuts, cassava, garlic and beans. As part of the ActionAid-supported Coalition of Women Farmers, she also shares land with 30 other women, growing maize and tomatoes on a plot given to them by the local chief, which gives them an extra harvest in the dry season.

Thabo Chidimba, 37, is also part of the farming coalition. With the crops she is growing using sustainable, low-cost and low-tech farming methods, she manages to feed 17 family members.

“I’m going to concentrate on making compost now because it helps me produce good results – in fact 7.5 tonnes of maize,” says Thabo. “What I like most about this group is that we can share our technical knowledge. We support one another and most important grow enough food to eat.”

Their healthy crops sit in stark contrast to many others in the country, where drought, poor quality soil, lack of access to land and lack of tools leave almost a quarter of people struggling to grow enough to feed their families – a powerful reminder that, just eight years ago, Malawi was facing food crisis and starvation.

Why, if farmers such as Thabo and Evelyn can be so productive, are so many rural people just like them still struggling? The answer lies in economics.

Food as a commodity, not a right

Approximately 2.5 billion people in poor countries rely directly on agriculture to survive, yet few of them have access to enough of the things they need – land, seeds, tools and knowledge – to become self-sufficient. Their livelihoods lie at the mercy of institutions such as the hugely powerful World Bank and International Monetary Fund, both of whom have, since the 1980s, viewed food as an export-earning commodity, not a basic human right.

As a result, aid money for agriculture has been used to promote free-market agricultural policies in developing countries, privatising government-run agencies such as coffee or wheat marketing boards, allowing local markets to be flooded with goods from the EU and US, and pushing poor countries towards export crops instead of supporting sustainable, small-scale farming.

Sustainable agriculture the solution

ActionAid believes that a simple and effective way to stop people going hungry is to help them become self-sufficient through sustainable agriculture. This means recycling crop waste and manure as compost, crop rotation to replenish the soil’s nitrogen content, encouraging natural pest control instead of pesticides, using local seeds and breeds, and spreading knowledge of best practice and locally based new techniques.

By channelling money towards sustainable agriculture instead of free market policies, the G8 could make a significant and immediate difference to the number of hungry people in the world.

Turning the tide

Back in the fields of the women’s cooperative farm, Jane Mnthali is discussing the changes she has seen since she joined the group. “I’m happy I’m in this farmers’ group because I no longer have to beg for school fees from my relatives,” she says.

Jane has been involved since the group was formed in 2007. “Back then, nobody had enough food to keep them throughout the year. Now I’ve got 2,500 kgs of maize in my store,” she says proudly.

Most farmers in Malawi, and indeed most developing countries, are at the mercy of the weather to nourish their crops. But even as climate change plays havoc through ever-increasing droughts and unpredictable rainy seasons, the women at the cooperative can continue to grow all year round thanks to the installation of an irrigation pump connected to a nearby river.

With cement provided by ActionAid, the women made their own bricks and brought sand to build irrigation channels to the fields. Some of the women had no money to buy seed, so that was provided too.

“The association has taught us to be self-reliant,” says Evelyn. “There’s no difference between the women who are on their own and women with husbands. They make as much money as one another.”

This project works because it puts the women at the centre, and as the people who produce and provide the majority of the food in developing countries, leaving them out of the equation – despite what institutions such as the IMF may advocate – makes no sense. As Evelyn will testify: “I’ve now got enough food for the whole year – I’m a happy woman.”

The Malawian government is now working with ActionAid, and a host of local groups just like Evelyn’s, on a new campaign to boost production and tackle hunger through the adoption of organic composts and manure.

ActionAid believes that G8 countries must take note and use their money wisely, by encouraging and supporting sustainable agricultural practices like the ones that have been so successful for Evelyn and her co-workers. This means starting with what farmers already know and working with them to develop sustainable and appropriate technologies, rather than promoting technological ‘quick fixes’ that all too often turn out to be anything but.

And to really make a difference to world hunger, they must also stop imposing trade rules and economic policy conditions that prevent developing country governments from supporting and nurturing their small farmers.

As the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s World Summit on Food Security gears up for November, FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf has gone on record as saying, “The silent hunger crisis — affecting one sixth of all of humanity — poses a serious risk for world peace and security.” The recognition is there, but now it is time to turn it into action.

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